As long as I'm in that area, I'm a divided man
who have moved from the Midwest, as many as you know,
to the West.
I'm sure there are many here.
It's a shame.
From Chicago to Seattle is a long,
long way spiritually, mentally, physically in every way.
First, from about the other place,
this next poem is a literal memory
of the '30s in that railhead just outside of the Chicago
City limits.
It's called "Bums At Breakfast."
"Daily, the bums sat down to eat in our kitchen.
They seemed to be whatever the day was like.
If it was hot or cold, they were hot or cold.
If it was wet, they came in dripping wet.
One left his snowy shoes on the back foot,
but his socks stuck to the clean linoleum.
And one, when my mother led him to the sink,
wrung out his hat instead of washing his hands.
My father said they'd made a mark
on the house, a hobo's sign on the sidewalk, pointing the way.
I heard it everywhere but never found it.
It must have said, it's only good in the morning
when the husband's out.
My father knew by heart Lectures on Thrift and Doggedness,
but he was always either working or sleeping.
My mother didn't know any advice.
They ate their food politely with old hands
not looking around and spoke in short, plain answers.
Sometimes, they said what they've been doing lately
or told us what was wrong.
But listening hard, I broke their language
into secret codes.
Their east meant west.
Their job meant walking and walking.
Their money meant danger.
Home meant running and hiding.
Their father and mother were different kinds of weather.
Dumbly, I watched them leave by the back door,
their pockets empty as a 10-year-old,
yet they looked twice as rich, being full of breakfast.
I carried mine like a lump all the way to school.
When I was growing hungry, where would they be?
None ever came twice, never to lunch or dinner.
They were always starting fresh in the fresh morning.
I dreamed of the day it stopped at the beginning."