If you Feel the Heat Know your Location

©May 22nd 2022, Olan L. Smith

Weigh down my tongue that I may not taste my daring

Or hurl words that chew the heart of those who hear my words.

Anchor my fighting spirit that I may not fly in the face of those

Who wrong the world ― less ― I eat their hearts with my wrath.

Blood must flow if wrongs should be righted, but to who's right?

Must the balance be restored ― theirs or ours? Truth is on both

Sides it seems. Who determines red from blue, but the authors

Of the words. It all comes down to disputes and who determines

Good from evil. I know in my heart what is fair, but my opinion

Might not measure yours. In a just society; does ethics govern?

Who feeds the hungry, or pays for their welfare, if born in poverty?

I know love is justice and it weighs on the left, feed the hungry,

Pay for their welfare, do not watch them die from want of food,

And if you are against the right of poor to shelter, call a space their

Own, then you face the wrong and you feel the winds of hell blow

Toward you. If you feel the heat with no sun, know your location.

A.N. I grew up in poverty, but I didn't know I was poor. I was happy in my poorness, because of my ignorance of it. Sure, I knew other kids had things we couldn't afford, but I accepted that. In looking back at my early years of skin and bones, of puniness, it wasn't because we didn't have food, we did have enough to scrape by, so, it was relative poverty, but my Mom was our surgeon in the family when it came to scrapes, cuts or minor injuries; if you nearly cut your thumb off, Mom was there to sew it back, and if you had a car wreck and drove a steal cable through your leg, Mom was their to reduce the swelling and mend your leg. We couldn't afford a visit to the hospital or the doctor, except for sulfa drugs for some illnesses she couldn't mend, but otherwise, Mom was it. I do know that even if everyone was able to live above the poverty line there would always be others who are richer, and look down on us as poor, is your poor my rich.

The photo belongs to me, and the house is the home I grew up in for the first 11 years of my life. It was a four-room house with three stoves, one duel source of fuel using either wood or coal, and two coal burning stoves, and the cat in the photo is Tom, born the same year I was.