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Jesus of Riverhead |
There he is, standing on the corner
of Griffing and Main,
near the store that sells those colorful flags
to colorful people of Mayan and Aztec descent,
the progeny of living gods now working like slaves;
his blue and white flannel shirt sticks to his torso
like a defiant Honduran banner,
one that's losing the battle
but has too many soldiers in the field
to raise the white flag.
There’s still a lot of fight left in this man,
too much of the rugged peasant in him,
fierce in his anger, simple in his ways,
he’ll never give up, never surrender,
he’ll never know defeat, even when he loses big
and everything around him fades into darkness.
The little man will keep coming back,
pure of heart, with dusky face,
his dreams outshining his reality;
there he’ll be picking in Baiting Hollow,
washing cars on 58, thinking of home,
a life serving fate.
Someday things will change for sure
and wealth will come his way,
just maybe his descendants won’t
learn to persecute others, but they probably will.
For now he’ll stand firm,
like a granite shrine to the proletariat,
looking for work on Griffing and Main.
copyright 2005
Cristogianni
Borsella |
