The Winds Have Shifted Poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

Why are you expressing your concern,
For the needs of others...
Now?
When those needs have been pronounced,
Long before you thought they should...
Be to you announced.

Why do you express now such empathy?
Is it because you feel,
Your sudden needs should take priority?

It is no mystery that the winds have shifted.
And upon your eyes,
Those storm clouds have come to drift.
When the Sun above your head shone bright...
You showed no concern for those in blight.

Why do you express now such empathy?
Is it because you feel,
Your sudden needs should take priority?

Why are you expressing your concern,
For the needs of others...
Now?
When those needs have been pronounced,
Long before you thought they should...
Be to you announced.

When did you discover,
Others deceived also suffered.
When did you realize,
Those days would come...
When you would be agonized,
With a suffering done!

It is no mystery that the winds have shifted.
And upon your eyes,
Those storm clouds have come to drift.
When the Sun above your head shone bright...
You showed no concern for those in blight.

But now you call for all to fight,
For equality and human rights!
But when you slept sound and peacefully those nights,
You knew not of hunger or homelessness!
Or just a bite of anything to soothe an appetite.

When did you discover,
Others deceived also suffered.
When did you realize,
Those days would come...
When you would be agonized,
With a suffering done!