THE OBSERVER
With elbows on the windowsill
she monitors gossip on the street.
The lady’s got no Ph.D.
or even a college degree,
but she thinks real hard about
the foolishness she sees.
She wonders why a teenager
throws a friend’s sneakers
around wires between the poles.
Mean-spirited teasing isn’t funny.
She reflects on whether countries
provoke each other in the same
poke-you-in-the-eye way,
sending missiles, stealing land,
or assassinating political leaders.
She asks herself: Why are folks unkind
in my own home town? Impatient
with the elderly, who hobble behind
a supermarket cart. Under their breath,
you can hear them say: “Get out of my way
you bumbling old fool!”
“Love thy neighbor,” a forgotten mantra.
She tries her best to ignore an ear-drubbing
noisy neighbor, who practices relentlessly
on his BMX ramp for the Red Bull Phenom.
To help her cope with daily frustrations,
she sing’s Charlie Chaplin’s “Spring Song Of Love,”
reminding her to love her lunatic neighbor
as she loves herself, the tarnished Golden Rule
that must be polished over and over again
in order to never lose its luster and sheen.
Milton P. Ehrlich 199 Christie St. Leonia, N.J. 07605