THE FACE OF THE POOR

Approaching the door of the soup kitchen place

Dignity, poise, tall beauty, and grace

Head held high above a collar of lace

Hungry and cold, but refusing disgrace

Fighting against poverty’s embrace

I saw a new face of the poor

I sought Jesus in a family of four

Coming, with babies, through the clinic door

Working, but homeless, here to implore

Sick children and wife I could see he adored

His tired, teary eyes were hard to ignore

His paycheck had bounced, his muscles so sore

In his low-income building, his story he told

Of his beautiful house which had to be sold

The wife who had died, who once wore his gold

Of medical bills and cost uncontrolled

Sad and alone, he let his story unfold

I looked for Jesus in a disabled man

Disheveled, distressed, with deformed hands

In confusion and fear, on the streets he ran

Abandoned, alone, unaware of life’s plan

Deaf, deformed, hard to understand

Derided, discarded, since his life began

In her sweet young face surrounded by curls

I listened as her story unfurled

Of abuse and threats, articles hurled

‘Neath the bruises and cuts I found a pearl

Whose life had been scarred in a stormy whirl

I saw a new face of the poor