Thanksgiving Eve

•Neatened up the Little Free Library.
Filled the neighborhood bowl
With water for passing dogs.
Made a cup of lemon ginger tea to sip
As I looked out the big front window
At the sunlight across the way
Being nudged ever higher into the treetops
By the shadow inexorably growing into night
As the air sharpened its frigid knives.
Thought about those with no home, no bed,
No place to escape the cold.
Wondered in what furious and infested alley
Justice will sleep tonight.

Buff Whitman-Bradley’s newest book is And What Will We Sing? a collection of protest and social justice poems spanning the last 25 years. He podcasts at thirdactpoems.com and lives with his wife, Cynthia, in northern California. Read other articles by Buff.