JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

In our village there are two of them

a man who is always smiling

wanders streets and hitch hikes

from here to there and back

asking everyone how are you today

and we smile back, give him a lift

 

And there’s a woman with a pushcart

no baby in it just a bundle of

newspapers and some assorted

outdated journals.  She knows everyone

and greets them all as she pushes her

cart along our streets pausing now

and then to smoke a cigarette

 

Sometimes in a big city, outside

a home or in a park you’ll find

a group of them, usually of small

stature and always smiling with

their small-talk faces; children all

their lives - we smile back at them

 

No harm disturbs their thoughts

their sleep, no jealousies, intrigues

or passions; sometimes we look

at our own faces in the mirror or

at the bitter grimacers driving joyless

cars and wish we ‘normal’ folk were

not quite so adult as we are