things and charity

in a hall of heroes who died in vain
the loyal knew well the spoils of faith
a cardinals call rang out and up
measured
echoing
falling like ash from a smokestack
then billowed back up
pouring out behind the council
and down the wide back stairs
a chorus of misled greed and hate
in awful polyphony with the rich father of mercy

war memorial at sunrise
(in 1966 at a city council meeting at the war memorial, hundreds and hundreds of the two thousand citizens attending booed cardinal sheehan’s advocacy for open housing legislation—which was, for the third time in three years, voted down by the council)

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