Sunday in CinCity

Many, many years ago when I was a young nurse we had a patient who was admitted frequently after being picked up by the police for sleeping in the park. His name, which we will agree on as James, could begin an avalanche of moaning and itching among the ICU staff as he almost always came in with lice and was definitely always very determined to get his own way. I loved James. I don't know why. But, I did and we got along. He made me laugh. It floored me that he would come in as the poster child for A Hot Damn Mess and we would work hard to clean him and patch him up only for him to leave AMA and refuse to leave until we gave him clothes. We had "stolen"his. The man still had moxie.

I met his brother once, towards the end--a dentist from one of the suburbs where they had both grown up. James "had some kind of break" and left the circle of his family to become one of the faceless and homeless men who wander through our city. It was because of James that I met Buddy Gray who ran the Drop-In Center downtown and what an inspiration he was. Buddy was a man who walked his talk and lived his beliefs out loud.

Buddy was killed by a homeless man he had known for years. James had died a few years before and, as fate sometimes works, I was with him at his bedside. I have never forgotten either man and will always consider myself blessed to have been in their circles.  


http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20111112/NEWS01/111130324/Celebrating-Buddy-Gray-s-legacy-15-years-later


Simply Lit


by Malena Morling



Often toward evening,

after another day, after

another year of days,

in the half dark on the way home

I stop at the food store

and waiting in line I begin

to wonder about people—I wonder

if they also wonder about how

strange it is that we

are here on the earth.

And how in order to live

we all must sleep.

And how we have beds for this

(unless we are without)

and entire rooms where we go

at the end of the day to collapse.

And I think how even the most

lively people are desolate

when they are alone

because they too must sleep

and sooner or later die.

We are always looking to acquire

more food for more great meals.

We have to have great meals.

Isn't it enough to be a person buying

a carton of milk? A simple

package of butter and a loaf

of whole wheat bread?

Isn't it enough to stand here

while the sweet middle-aged cashier

rings up the purchases?

I look outside,

but I can't see much out there

because now it is dark except

for a single vermilion neon sign

floating above the gas station

like a miniature temple simply lit

against the night.