peddle my wares

I look around at our society

this system of people and rules.

A mass of myriads of units

convolved, doing our best to make do

I see its flows and its cycles

its customs, its habits, its fares

and I feel that it asks of each of us

that we strive to peddle our wares

The human unit nowadays

depends on the dense social net

its mere right to survival

is bought with coin and sweat

Tis an axiom of the flowing

that to get one must perforce give

yet too often the immediate transaction

overrides the deeper zest to live

Too often see I peers and strangers

serving a stale or unwilling bond

measuring time and product as foremost

uninspired to do anything beyond

proving bare required and enoughness

justifying the wages they seek

but by bottling our service and efforts

our will fastly turns stale and weak

Tis not the nature of the service rendered

which degrades or shrivels the employ.

It is love in the service provided

which transmutes the must into joy.

It is whether I support the purpose

of a student well reared and taught.

It is whether I see in each cleaned floor

how it freshens and inspires he who walks.

It is whether I feel in a customer

her joy when she gets her croissant.

It is then that the mere ticking workday

is enlivened in the plain restaurant.

Do we see health in the ailing patient?

Do we see utility in the cracked?

Pouring love into our service

inflows us the love we thought we lacked.

And it is love that best guides our service

for love only stays if unforced.

So it's worth to listen to our signals

of where our love desires to go most.

Trusting love instead of the logic

can feel like a fearful leap indeed

for money and prestige and safety

are those which most often take the lead.

Yet we humans, in our momentous frenzy

to build and conquer and make

have grown rushed and lopsided

patching hurry and confusion with fake.

The great structures of humans grow rigid

in their zeal to not crumble and fall

yet we need change from rigid to supple

for us to know who we are at all.

So I see the society around me

and it asks me to peddle my wares.

Yet I come empty-handed, I have none.

My love wants only to help and to care.

I believe that I can help through listening.

I feel love when I touch and reflect.

Yet in language of degrees and salaries

I know of no job that pays to introspect.

I live amidst a web of transactions

and through savings, I cope and survive.

yet I long to, through loving, true actions

give my love-laden service, and thrive.

I aim not for inflated financials

I wish not that I garner prestige

but with my whole body, mind, and emotions

I wish to serve lovingly, either generally or in some niche.