THE SLUM IN ALL OF US
"They are gone! They are gone!"
They all said with glee,
When the last slum was torn down,
By the highest order and decree,
"For a good part of a decade,
Those feckless settlements have stood,
Filthy, small, airless dungeons,
Spun out of cement cloth and wood"
Those settlements had once been homes,
Of people with both honor and dignity,
Who were beaten and marred by their fate,
To unwillingly reside in those filthy shanties.
But to the building-dwelling folk,
They were and always would be,
Notorious, dirty, unlawful criminals,
Whose sole crime lay in their poverty,
"Thank goodness they are gone,
We just hope they don't return,
What happens to them hereafter,
Is just none of our concern"
This is why they did not realize,
That nothing at all, had been done,
That it might take forever,
To remove a single slum,
It's when we feel the pain of another,
Which we should and must,
That we will be able to demolish,
The slum in all of us!