RAG PICKER (A POEM)

Looking for “treasures” amidst your rubbish

Thrown disdainfully into the municipal bin,

With seriousness of a peripatetic philosopher

Examining an engaging cerebral postulate

Ere he gifts it to humanity at large to admire!

He begins his day ere you fully waken;

You may espy him in every city or town,

With his heavy plastic sack on shoulder,

A scientist unaware of what he will discover

Ere the weary day is done to return home.

His home is rude with none of the basics

That you take for granted and he dreams of

To possess one day when he strikes gold,

Like an Alaskan prospector panning in streams,

His eyes sparkling more than the gurgling waters!

A plastic baby doll, sans arms, a leg and an eye

Will see his baby sister through her childhood;

How kind of the girl who gladly discarded it

In favor of the Barbie sent to her by an aunt

From the U.S. for her grand fifth birthday!

Afternoon finds him in front of the College,

His ubiquitous sack shouldered like an insignia,

Watching girls and boys carelessly cavorting

In silly games of meaningless cinematic coquetry,

Throwing him disapproving glances of contempt!

He has no pretensions, no ego, and no respect

Before the cruel, unfeeling, contemptuous world

That knows no hunger and has no awareness

Of how painfully difficult existence is for him

Whose lot is poverty due to hapless circumstances..