Small Offerings Of Giveaways Poem by Susan Lacovara

If you give away enough pieces of your soul
Are you somehow, someday
Left barely able to stand
Leaning on a roadside fence
That frames an abandoned house
Huffing and puffing
For want of cleansing air
To reinflate your lungs

If you give away enough layers of your heart
Will your garments still grip you in warmth
Or will the winds find their way
In through the tattered fabric
Turning you blue and numb
Will you need notch your belt
Tightening and tucking your fragile frame
In fashion that no longer fits

If you give away enough well wishes
To strangers on the street
Asking only that they lift their eyes
Acknowledge you are there
Only to be met with the indifference
Of their necessary dashing off
Are your words just carried
Autumn leaves, in the wind

If you hand out enough pamphlets of praise
And pretty petunia poetry
On an avenue that links to the crossroads
Of KIND and CONSIDERATE
Will you be stranded on the sidewalk
Waiting for the light to change
Watching the traffic turn towards a detour destination
And you, without a map
Decide which way to navigate

If you give away enough empathetic tenderness
Like the man playing a lonesome clarinet
In the middle of the bustling marketplace
Standing on his small square of nowhere
Will those lovely notes fall to listening ears

Or do we resign ourselves to believing
We are giving away too much
Without reciprocity
And turn up the collar on our coat
Lower the gaze of our eyes
Tune out the sounds of the shuffling madness
And sadly suggest
Possibly even confess
That the give-aways come at too high a price

I dare to think twice
Look at my watch
And decide that it is time
To get going, again....
I've still more left to give away