Grace

Those lunatics who stare into the sun

or shriek at pigeons in the local park

are childhood friends who we have left behind

when all the games they played stopped being fun.

We know they wander somewhere in the dark

but keep them out of sight and out of mind.

We eye them cautiously when passing by,

say ‘There but for the grace of God go I’

as though God chose us as His favoured son

and opted for His other son to die.

We notice as the ambulances come

and yet we never stop to wonder why

we didn’t help or what we might have done

instead of looking down and walking by.