Mine Is

Mine is a small blue peach pit
That shakes and rattles and rages
And knows if it’s put into cages
“Gets back you!" It says "And you! And you!”
It always knows what to do
That small sad,
Ugly wrinkled, mad
Bouncer at my door
Always minding the store --
Giving what-for
To Mr. On-time and Mr. Be-Nice
And Good Sir "I Can Stand This For a Little While Longer"-- Please
Don’t you ever let me forget
That mine is a small blue peach pit

Five Self-Commandments With Regard to the Global Refugee Crisis

1) I shalt harken unto my own counsel whenever countries of exceeding wealth and plenty -- and most especially the United States -- pleadeth poverty and incapacity to take in a greater share of refugees or to provide them aid elsewhere. I will remind myself of two numbers: $5 billion and $600 billion: the $5 billion being the annual budget of the entire United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which provides all the UN's aid to all refugees displaced by all conflicts and persecutions around the world; and the $600 billion being the US military budget for this fiscal year, 2015. I will dare to notice that one of those numbers is roughly 1% of the other. I will reflect upon the fact that all UN humanitarian organizations put together spend about $20-30 billion a year to attempt to provide food, shelter, medical care, and more to all the world's most desperately impoverished and displaced populations. I shalt recall that this is considerably smaller than the endowment of yon Harvard University, though it still bear the penurious designation of a "non-profit institution."