-
Poverty
- University of Arkansas Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY Poverty “la colera de pobre tiene dos rios contra muchos mares.” —Cesar Vallejo Vallejo wrote that with God we are all orphans. I send $22 a month to a kid in Ecuador so starvation keeps moving on its bony burro past his door—no cars, computers, basketball shoes—not a bottle cap of hope for the life ahead . . . just enough to keep hunger shuffling by in a low cloud of flies. It’s the least I can do, and so I do it. I have followed the dry length of Mission Creek to the sea and forgotten to pray for the creosote, the blue salvia, let alone for pork bellies, soy bean futures. Listen. There are 900 thousand Avon Ladies in Brazil. Billions are spent each year on beauty products world-wide—28 billion on hair care, 14 on skin conditioners, despite children digging on the dumps, selling their kidneys, anything that is briefly theirs. 9 billion a month for war in Iraq, a chicken bone for foreign aid. I am the prince of small potatoes, I deny them nothing who come to me beseeching the crusts I have to give. I have no grounds for complaint, though deep down, where it’s anyone’s guess, CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY ✦ 99 I covet everything that goes along with the illustrious— creased pants as I stroll down the glittering boulevard, a little aperitif beneath Italian pines. But who cares what I wear, or drink? The rain? No, the rain is something we share—it devours the beginning and the end. The old stars tumble out of their bleak rooms like dice— Box Cars, Snake Eyes, And-The-Horse-You-Rode-In-On . . . not one metaphorical bread crumb in tow. Not a single Slaudo! from the patronizers of the working class—Pharaoh Oil, Congress, or The Commissioner of Baseball—all who will eventually take the same trolley car to hell, or a slag heap on the outskirts of Cleveland. I have an ATM card, AAA Plus card. I can get cash from machines, be towed 20 miles to a service station. Where do I get off penciling in disillusionment? My bones are as worthless as the next guy’s against the stars, against the time it takes light to expend its currency across the cosmic vault. I have what everyone has— the over-drawn statement of the air, my blood newly rich with oxygen before the inescapable proscenium of the dark, my breath going out equally with any atom of weariness or joy, each one of which is closer to God than I. 100 ✦ CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY ...