Sadness

Sometimes life's sadness overpowers me.

It's not a sadness that can make you cry,

Nor is it a feeling that you can really share.

It's simply a despondency within your soul.

Sometimes life's sadness appears to me in a child,

One whose body is left twisted and deformed

Because a mother chose a drug to quench her need,

And cared little of the life she grew inside.

Sometimes I see life's sadness in a man

That sits alone in his room, preparing to die,

As his family goes their way, enjoying life,

Forgetting the man's sacrifices in past times.

Sometimes I drive along a city street,

And I watch the homeless with all they own go by.

Who misses them? Where are the ones they love?

Are they unwelcome, or do their people just not care?

Sometimes my heart cries out in pain and woe.

A memory of the loved one I can't see.

The past has come between us, severed the tie.

And I wonder if I can bear it another day.

Oh, the miseries of life that people bear!

We stand aside and watch, then go our way.

Sometimes life's sadness goes unnoticed and ignored,

Because we don't know how to ease the pain.

Forgive us Father! Teach us how to love.

Restore in us a caring, sympathetic heart.

Remind us of the prayers we've left unsaid.

God save us from the evil of callous apathy.