You Carry Glory

I love you all

even before you laugh

At the foot of the stairs I contemplate

a woman pale ~ all beige and cream

a tinge of grey

She smiles

and pale is swept away

The tall, dark man in blue sweeping away

the dust

the paper scraps before my feet

who asks

how my day is unfolding

My children come in colors

changing

ever spreading, then receding

patterns overlay my heart

I die for love and am reborn

in their beautiful faces

The woman in the hijab bursts

in red and blue with golden strains

Her eyes sparkle and she gives me

more quarters than allowed

for my laundry

I pass an old, hunched figure

charcoal deep

His sad eyes plead for something

all I have to spare is love

and a dollar they are his

he, too, owns a smile

I wander through early spring

white cement

black earth and

greening trees but look!

a girl in polychrome

I pause and snap her picture

we share a moment

then I'm gone

You(!) my love

are regal

no mere violet will do for a word

I thought that purple

was my favorite color

but it is you

My city, my hosts of street dwellers

my spectrum of humanity

the colors of God's love

are the canticle in my

marrow