places

“O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell,
    and the place where your glory abides.”  Psalm 26:8

i will find you in the homes

where the hungry are welcomed

as sisters and brothers,

and on the playgrounds

where immigrant kids share

the intricacies of their childhood games;

i will hear you in the assisted living apartments

as you sing love songs to the lonely,

and in the neighborhoods where justice

is being planted in vacant lots

filled with broken hopes and discarded dreams;

i will find you in the hardened hearts

which sing lullabies to the orphans

of the victims of opioid greed,

and in the light which shines

through the cracked windows

of abandoned houses to show

the forgotten the way home.

© 2019 Thom M. Shuman