Homage

For the young child sitting at the back of her family's shop
hunched over her schoolbooks, intent on her homework,
separated from the roar of Nathan road by nothing but a thick
curtain of humidity.

For the Amah who wakes before dawn to press
blank white business shirts
while dreaming of her own family
emerging from green cocoon of morning

For the security guard who smiles every morning when he greets me
juggling the dozen or so English words that he knows-
who earns in a month what I earn in a week;
who never complains.

For the taxi driver who works12 hour shifts, six days a week
so he can send his kids to university in the hope that they;
or at least their kids will have chances he never had.

For the tower dwellers perched in the shadow of Lion Rock
For the elderly women (any of whom could be my mother)
pulling skeins of cardboard along gritty city streets
at midnight for a few dollars a day.

For the cage home dwellers in crumbling tenements
standing butt-naked in sagging vests soaked in sweat
hypnotized by the frenzied drone of the race caller

For the charcoal burners, the jumpers
who claw their way out of this existence only to be re-born
three blocks away under frozen glare of hospital lights.

For all those who never give up
who reach deep down inside their guts
and make a heart from a stomach.

For the quietest student, in the furthest corner
of the largest class, in the poorest of schools
who goes to sleep each night with a dream of a brighter
tomorrow

for you, for you