Down-and-Out in Downtown

Down-and-Out in Downtown

I wait twenty minutes for the bus
To wisk me into a miasmic state
Of cowardly amnesia far away
From the man sleeping In the doorway
Of the Courtyard Marriott
Where I could get a room
And a swim for $249- if I wanted,
Wifi free.

© rita h kowats 2015

Story Recording:  “The Miser’s Slippers” by Shoshannah Brombacher

Shoshannah Brombacher’s story, “The Miser’s Slippers,” helps me to deal with my experience while waiting for the bus.  In her story Shoshannah stresses that the man is a miser. That he is rich seems secondary.  When we live miserly lives of attachment to material goods, we don’t see the poor.  As human beings, our call is to cultivate a practice of spiritual poverty, by holding our possessions and our status like feathers in our hand. This practice, over time, removes the scales over our eyes and allows us to understand and empathize, and ultimately share.  I call myself and the world community to this spiritual practice of being poor.