(context: these are about my time at Sheppard Elementary School in North Philadelphia helping muralist Sandra Gonzalez with a mural project in the school. a group of us worked with different classrooms of the elementary school students to help them paint tiles for the mural to be installed in their school)
People talk about service
as though it were one-sided
to serve, after all, comes from the word
Servus– slave in Latin.
no one talks about how it is a give and take
or really
a not a give at all, just a share,
see,
at twenty-five revolutions around the sun
I know some things about some things
but the kids I met in Philly, most with merely a quarter
of revolutions as I,
know some things about some things I will never be unlucky enough to know
and have some perspective about some things I should really want to know.
‘ cause I didn’t grow up North Philly
or anywhere resembling it.
I grew up suburban,
I grew up four-bedroom, packed lunches, new clothes when I wanted them,
love notes, warm hugs, kind hearts when I needed them.
If I don’t think I have a thing or two to learn from youth less fortunate than I
then chances are, I have more than a thing or two to learn from somebody.
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