It isn't to who or why or how you give 
That really matters in the end
What you give is the difference 
Between personal satisfaction 
And truly selfless giving 

What if you don't have
Even spare change to spare
And still 
You drop those precious few dimes or pennies
Into the donation can 
And slink away embarrassedly
Trying not to be noticed for such a meager donation
When those dimes and pennies 
Are needed just to get by 
And even they are a sacrifice 

It wasn't money given then
But faith and hope and a bit of lost pride
And that gives true value to those pennies and dimes

What if you help an elderly woman 
Loading groceries into her car
Or offer to put away a disabled man's cart
What if you see loneliness in a stranger's eyes
And strike up an hour long conversation 
Started in a Wal-Mart checkout line 

Sometimes all it takes is eye contact, a nod, a smile
Acknowledgement 
Reaching out unthinkingly 
Noticing and truly seeing 
When many just pass by, eyes averted 
But seeing, caring
This is giving of another kind
The giving of humanity, of understanding 
And its worth more than pennies and dimes

Maybe you see beyond words to what lies beneath
And feel the ache of every pain
The soul deep torment, the travails
The embarrassment in blurted, haft slurred confessions  
The fear, the lost, the empty darkness and the loneliness 
What if you feel it all so deeply that you own it
And in bleeding with them, you ease their sorrow 
But every emotion never leaves you 
It cuts, bleeds, scars
Opens again, bleeds and aches and scars again 
Until you are covered in scars 
You become scars

Insight and empathy 
Unleashed in full force to aide the suffering
Even though the pain is everlasting 
This is raw, unrestrained compassion 
And it's expense cannot be compared to pennies and dimes.

 

by Amanda Burns 
 

 

© Amanda Saylor nee Burns. All rights reserved,