Invisible Ones Poem by Eric Paeplow

Alone with their sorrows,
alone with their pain
Sitting there,
in the same place,
day after day

Feet shuffle past,
on a seemingly endless quest
To gather more stuff,
to get from one place,
to the next

With dark, empty eyes
and even emptier within
Having given their all,
having given all they'd got
Now sitting all alone
and having been,
all but forgotten

Yet amidst the shuffle,
a pair of young eyes has seen
What society has abandoned,
what society has lost
Left there to decay,
sitting all alone,
in the same old spot

Yet the child,
having not yet learned
societies' cold ways
Sees him there
and sees naught,
but a soul in despair

Looking back in wonder
and with a heart that still cares
Until at last pulled away,
by her "blind" mother's hand

Funny how we lose sight
and just how quickly
society will dismiss
Those solitary souls,
those specters,
those invisible ones

Now lost,
alone and forgotten,
as if unseen,
by passing eyes
Left to their devices,
left alone to their solitary fate

No one to give a caring word,
or lend a helping hand
Abandoned,
until the day,
they are no longer with us

And no one will even notice,
nor will they ever care
Left to the ashes of history,
to suffer their fate,
alone....