It's Never Black and White

The weather is turning—tonight the temperature will hover in the low single digits. I turn up the heat, put on a sweater, and think about the vegetable soup in the large pot. Tomorrow the paper will tell of the homeless who went to shelters and those who refused to leave the street.

These photos were taken outside my house. I chose b&w because answers are rarely b&w, but shades of gray. Some street people will spend the night inside—but some are afraid of the shelters or of the confinement.

The Woman at Mercy Shelter

In the morning
she is like a rooster
talking to the sun,
to patches of light
on a wood floor.

She accounts for yesterday's
passing, telling of her trip
to buy vegetables.

"Two cantaloupes so soft when I press
their skin. My thumbs get wet."

"Asparagus on hidelike stems
stood like wood soldiers
in a bucket of water. I tiptoes past."

She talks to cats and dogs,
to people on trains
who bury their eyes.

She talks to shadows
on sidewalks.

At night she holds
a hand mirror,
and talks to her face
bloated with words.

Tomorrow, she says—
I'm going home.


—Photopoet A Measure of Gifts