The Courage All Around

I wrote this with the audience at Bus Boys & Poet's Tuesday open-mic night in mind. I won't make it there this Tuesday, but I hope to recite it--performing would be more appropriate, but my skills in that respect remain rudimentary--the Tuesday night after next.

The Courage All Around

Late-night honest
with myself
My boy shames me
The courage he shows

drumming at the Metro
Spare change pours in
Folded bills drifting like
snow covering his lap

Ten years old first
sharing a buck with a woman who asks,
then shooing her away when
she won’t stop asking for more

He goes about his business,
a lionheart tending his
pride of intentions,
while I flinch at the work

before me, at stepping up
before you, at speaking
my piece But where he’s
heading, where heart and skill

and the company of others,
the company of you,
colleagues with the same courage
to be the change

we can believe in,
that place, that thought, swells
my heart The world
you will build beckons and beguiles

and because the heart is
a complicated thing
I feel no shame here
I feel the courage all around