Dear Moon, A Poem About Homelessness and Human Dignity

Dear Moon,

You have watched them sleep beneath cardboard shelters

their breath visible in your cold light and bodies curled

against the ground that offers nothing warm.

I have seen you linger over the woman

who counts quarters calculating

whether she can buy both bread and pay for shoes

her fingers tracing the cruel economics of survival.

You know the man who pushes his cart

down empty avenues collecting aluminum cans

each one a small donation

for tomorrow's meal.

You have illuminated

his careful sorting his inventory of hope

measured in recyclable fragments.

There are those who find rest on park benches

using newspapers as blankets while their dreams

are interrupted by sirens and the shuffle

of late-shift workers heading home

to beds they will never know.

I wonder if you remember the child

who learned to read on library steps

homework spread across worn denim

her mother working double shifts

while bills pile up.

Moon you are the democracy of light

shining equally on penthouse and sidewalk

on those who sleep in silk and those

who wrap themselves in whatever they can find.

Your constancy means something different

to people who own nothing permanent

except the certainty that you will return.

Tonight as you rise over this city

where rent consumes paychecks and wages

that cannot stretch to cover basic dignity

remember them in your crossing

Be their witness and their companion

in the long burden of making do.

Yours in solidarity

A voice from below