Today, as we were leaving Times Square from visiting Madame Tussade's Museum there was a homeless woman in the subway platform. While this is not all that unusual in NYC, the woman herself was. When my eyes fell apon her, my heart fell apart for her. Despite the usual hot June heat she was had brown cloth wrapped around her head, and black cloth drapped over her in waves. She was petite. Tiny, like me. The little hair I could see under the cloth was a dark brown. She was pushing a slate green and creamy white "dou" stroller with all her belongings piled inside.

None of these things make her particularly different from any other homeless person you may see on any street in any city in the United States. It was her eyes. And her hands. The eyes and the hands of a person never lie. The lips and tongue may sing in falsehoods, but the hands and eyes, never. Her eyes were held so much sorrow, and yet pride. There was intellegence in them. There was no resonance of drugs or alcohol. There was no telltale marks of lost to the stiffening devil of insanity. Her hands were delicate. Long fingers. Piano playing fingers. Turning pages for childrens books fingers. Pinching out spices for dinner finers. Crossing for luck fingers. Gentle fingers that caresses the newspapers that she dug out of the garbage. Her eyes hungerily devoured every word on the page.

There on the platform floor laid the broken pieces of my heart. I knew in a second there was nothing I could do. Give her the four dollars I had on me? I don't think she would have wanted it. Her eyes told me so. Even if she did take it, what good would it have done her? What had brought this woman with the delicate fingers and intellegent reading eyes to the subway in folds of cloth with a stroller holding everything she had in the world. I came up with a million answers since then.

My mind is spinning with thoughts, ideas and my heart remains heavy. I am reminded of the quote, "Men and women have created this problem. And men and women can fix this problem."

Often I end my entries with optimism or sarcasim. But this time I won't. Like life, sometimes, it just ends.


-kln-