As if it matters
- noticing the migrant workers—
- two to a wheelbarrow of concrete—
- mending the walls of the rich
- that exclude them
- not speeding past the Mexican
- landscape and lawn workers
- and homeless drunks
- on their way to church
As if it lasts
- the protest against
- the long wait to enter the death chamber,
- the taking of new or old or any life
As if they change anything
- clouds in a blue sky that
- arrest the heart
- words rising from the dark cave
- into the light
- war being the outcome anyway
- just or unjust
- those against it mocked and crowned
- with shame
As if they already possess it
- the merciful
- who continue to pray
- and labor and protest
- without counting the measure
- with which they measure
Murray Bodo is a Franciscan friar, author, and visiting professor in the Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University in New York.

This appears in the June 2007 issue of Sojourners
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