Remember, Hope, Heal
We are preparing for this year’s Homeless Memorial Day, which will take place next Wednesday, December 21. It is an annual event, with gatherings across the nation on or around the first day of winter each year, to remember, grieve, and honor our sisters and brothers who had experienced homelessness and who passed away this year. In the cold and encroaching darkness, hundreds of Philadelphians will gather to remember those homeless and formerly homeless Philadelphians who died in 2011 and to call for an end to homelessness.
One of our alumni, Ben Mitchell, has been part of the planning committee for this year’s Homeless Memorial Day. He has written a poem, which he will read at the event. In anticipation of next week’s gathering, we share this poem with you:
We gather again on the 21st of December,
the longest day of winter,
in order to remember
our brothers and sisters who are out in the cold
and those who have died with their stories untold…
In the background echoes we hear the shout…
that banks got bailed out while we were sold out…
and we wonder why…
some get fat while others die
as we listen in silence to our babies' cry…
Cry in hunger an unbearable pain
and the poor get poorer while the rich continue to gain…
families turned away from the inn…
while we sit at the table and wonder where to begin
to quell the tide fueled by corporate greed
Oppressed, repressed, suppressed so that others may succeed…
Some would argue that it’s not my fight,
what have I to do with those folk or their plight…
then there are those who won’t rest in peace
while homelessness is the cause of anyone’s decease…
How can we call ourselves GOD fearing women and men
if we continue to allow these deaths again and again…
It time for this nonsense to come to an end.
Its time for this nonsense to come to an end.
So I ask those of you who are willing to compromise,
suppose it was your loved ones lives…
this is a movement that surpasses 9 to 5….
So share our battle cry
or get your own
but none of us are until all are home.
