Curse of the Charmed Life by Kim Stafford

 

Things pretty much worked out for you—

you have what you need, and if you need more,

you have people ready and able to provide.

Sure, someday your luck will run out,

you’ll be helpless, then gone, and your people

will gather in your honor.

There will be music, and tears. People will

embrace—for you. There will be an odd

buoyancy, a chatter of kind words, blessing.

But the curse of this charm is exile

from the unlucky, how gifts make you

deaf to the sudden shout

of a man camped in the ravine,

make you blind to the dirty face

of a woman with a cardboard sign.

Without hunger, it’s easy to be heartless.

Without hurt, you are disabled. Without

the battering of bad luck, the pummeling

of lost hopes, the wounds of life without love,

of dark dreams that last past dawn, how can you

know what one life might do for another?

Kim Stafford