Seeing the poverty of a poor man
pity rises,
sympathy stirs,
the heart grows restless.

A wish is born
to reach out,
to do something
for him.

Because he too
is a man,
in the fragile skin
of human beinghood.

But by the time
the twenty-first century arrived,
he had grown cunning—

how to cheat the passer-by,
how to trouble the neighbor,
how to seize the resources of the state,
and if not,
how to ruin it
for his own amusement.

Instead of becoming a good citizen,
he learns to be selfish,
to move through society
like a shadow of opportunism.

Now, his poverty
stirs no pity,
only fear—
and a curse also slips
from the lips.