Poem | On a Cardinal Climbing Down a Manhole to Restore Power to 400 Homeless People

ON A CARDINAL CLIMBING DOWN A MANHOLE TO RESTORE POWER TO 400 HOMELESS PEOPLE

We were almost used
To living in the dark,
To being powerless,

That day you quietly
Pulled the lid off the sky
Of a world below

And snuck down, strange
Inside that stale air,
To flip the switch,

Subverting power structures,
Sparking gasps of joy
In us who could not pay

That suffocating debt,
Your dirtied hands declaring,
“Let there be light.”