When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.
Lev 19:9-10
The faceless voices are all around us
The poor, needy, sick, the fatherless
We walk by with a look of disgust
Quietly thinking, "they've made their choices"
So their pain can't bother us
To rationalize, to vilify
To wash our hands, to close our eyes
To be silent on every evil we should decry
Allows the neglect, the pain to be normalized
Leave the edges of your field
For the poor, the widowed, the wanderer
But our excess is concealed
since they are squanderers
Our conscious must be clean
Or guilt might invade our rest
So, we leave nothing to be gleaned
and quietly whisper a justification, a rationalization, a lie
" I cannot freely give, since I know best"
Edit:
I'm working on the last verse and rewording it. Can't decide which one to go with.
The faceless voices are all around us
The poor, needy, sick, the fatherless
We walk by with a look of disgust
Quietly thinking, "they've made their choices"
So their pain can't bother us
To rationalize, to vilify
To wash our hands, to close our eyes
To be silent on every evil we should decry
Allows the neglect, the pain to be normalized
Leave the edges of your field
For the poor, the widowed, the wanderer
But our excess is concealed
since they are squanderers
To give, they must be screened
since our riches are our own
so we leave nothing to be gleaned
and forget the bloody grace we've been shown
we have to justify our apathy
'they're unintelligent, they're delinquent'
so, we allow their bodies to atrophy
in the presence of suffering, we blink once
To avoid guilt we mutter
I cannot freely give
they would still be a drifter
if given a life to relive
as we lay down to rest
a statement without humility
'I know best'
To reassure our conscious's fragility.
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