This Week, and Next Week Too*




Heroes come and go,
Some enshrined but really entombed,
Famed for momentary action,
Bronzed and interred, sentenced to life imprisonment
In "this was history" books.

Others simply a one night stand,
Newspaper front page today,
A homeless man's shoe stuffing, the next.

I like heroes plenty too,
My favorite kind are those who are heroic
Every day, in the small ways,
Plain vanilla, unspectacular, yet is not
Vanilla always first,
Above all?*

I lean toward toward those heroes
Who in every child a leaf do see,
Gently moving it along for just an instant,
A wind, a covering breeze,
Nourishing it briefly then sending it,
Floating, strengthened, onward bound.

I lean toward those heroes,
Who see a tree, a school,
Knowing that so many leaves need be apprehended,
Knowing that to all, one hero man, cannot attend.

Yet in his waking hours,
The despair of enormity
That limits most, with its peculiar powers,
The tired thoughts that would have us say,
Let some else be a hero today,
Clouds not his sight on which
We now rely,
A daily hero has a greater vision
That does not succumb,
This week or the next.

The man that seeks no glory,
But our world does glorify
By raising up the children
One dance step daily,
Is our hero, this week,
And the next, and the next...

June 23rd 2012