Plastic bags dance in arms of breeze.
Fields of forlorn coked-out bottles,
And the stray cat crews that hunt them.
Sewage flows in ragged rivers.
Rubble piled in place of growth.
Butts sit smoking smoldering moments
Of ash not fit for Lenten liturgy.
A million and one the storage place,
For man-made reject refuse.
But where to hide our filthy thoughts, our evil deeds?
We'll hide them in the open.
It seems a day doesn't go by without me noticing all the trash-strewn streets and fields around Bethlehem and Beit Sahur. A young boy tosses his coke-can into the bushes. A couple of shebaab, the teens of the neighborhood, dump concrete and dust in an abandoned lot. An old woman mops her dirty floor out into the street. Such beautiful potential masked by filth and disgust. And yet seeing this everyday reminds me in some sad way of the trash-strewn lives we live. The waste I pass by each day pales in comparison to the hatred and injustice—evil—that clutters our lives and spirits in plain view. As easy as it is for one's thoughts to frustratingly plead for a cleanly environment, how much more important to clean up our thoughts and acts?
