History has forgotten
those I admire
most. Even I
can’t call
their names.

People of the daily
who because it
needed to be done
tended wounds,
spoke truths,
opened doors to
hungry people,
appreciated beauty
and found it often,
lived lightly
on the Earth,
flinched not while
challenging
brutality,
or flinched,
but remained
steadfast anyway,
sang with abandon,
died when
it was time.

Deeds undocumented
by any textbook.
No image
for posterity.
Nothing left counted
by the common
measures of man.

They who mended the world
over and over again,
alive in the not-known.