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labour ready

under the brutal colours

of the dusty noonday sun

they wait

these hulks of humanity

the day labourers

of the Palestinian road

immortalized in gospel story

but forgotten in the praxis of the church.

in the 5 a.m. darkness

of the Vancouver winter

they wait

at labour ready

these same day labourers

forgotten in the city of leisure

that knowingly exploits them.

two millennia lie between them.

but they are linked by a snaking cord of injustice.

they are bound together

as if the same mother had agonizingly spewed them

from a watery cocoon

into a harsh social darkness

that neither nurtures or protects.

so they wait

only to return

to face the scornful eyes

of tired lovers

and the averted gaze

of children wrapped in a tapestry of shame.

not wanted by the captains of industry

and the maestros of progress

they are an embarrassment

to their own families

unknown to neighbours

and cursed by the womb

that brought them forth in such hope

and rapturous expectation.

these are the shadow-dwellers.

their broken lineage pockmarks the veins of history.

on the margins of society

they have but one carefully crafted skill.

they know what it is to wait.

[by Charles Ringma]