Veterans may return home with medals for valor, but if they become homeless, they’re shunned by the same society that sent them to war. “Too many street sleepers, doubly wounded, earned the nation's Purple Heart, even the Bronze Star. Now they don't have a home, a job or a car.”

How can we be housed and sleep at night when our brothers have no homes? How can we be housed and sleep at night when our sisters sleep on stones? What happened to the home we shared inside God’s heart? Whatever drove that home to vacancy drove us apart.

Peter Marin’s poetry illuminates and transfigures, enabling us to see the sacred beauty of people living on the streets all around us. In a land where homeless people are shunned and persecuted, it is a revolutionary act when a poet finds beauty in their lives, and restores their stolen dignity.

The war on poverty's just begun:/ yet two steps forward, four steps back./ The losers? City corners stun./ The war on poverty's just begun?/ Yet safety nets are holey or none —/ anyone care to really keep track?/ The poverty war is just begun —/ two steps forward, four steps back.

When she asks spare change/ but you pass by/ her only response is “God bless you”/ and a broken-toothed smile./ She shows you how hearts really break,/ can you feel your own?/ She lets you see a whole country with/ a government full of broken promises.

l asked the lord in prayer/ why people are/ begging for food/ I thought god’s goodness/ was for everyone/ and the lord answered me/ the poorest of the poor/ count on you and me/ to be their voice hands and feet/ and when we give until it hurts/ the poorest of the poor/ will be no more

A pigeon waits placidly/ for some scraps of bread./ A homeless elder lady waits placidly/ for some scraps of coin./ In a world of uproar/ in which the sun still shines./ In a world of uproar/ in which flowers still show faces divine./ She smiles beatifically./ “God will make it right.”

When angels visit dressed in white,/ in fragile slippers, golden wings,/ they offer marshmallows, starry light./ When angels visit draped in white/ of calm surrender to the night/ they know the streets and gritty rings./ Angels, visit please, in white,/ in fragile slippers, golden wings.

The point of Basho’s poem, “Summer Grasses,” is the vanity of war in comparison to the fertility of the earth. If you recall Basho’s poetry while reading about war, or while sitting silently in meditation, or demonstrating against nuclear weapons, Basho’s consciousness may be a source of insight or power.

there are angels sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk/ trading stories and confessions and some lies/ trading cigarettes and sandwiches and comfort/ with their whole lives in their little angel eyes/ angels who look nothing like the pictures/ in the big museum paintings on a wall/ hoping there’s somebody who remembers/ how far a little angel child can fall