Roomin' House Blues

Last Friday as I went about Seattle's streets doing my errands and thinking of my personal problems and our societal ills I ran into a friend going to coffee with someone else.  The three of us fell into a brief conversation, and I talked about my job search and about the circumstances that may lead to a foreclosure on my sister's home in San Jose.  The man I had just met spoke about how he had lost his home in Burien five years ago.  We talked about how widespread unemployment and home foreclosure are right now. After they left and I continued on my way I looked around and saw how many people out on the streets looked beaten down. For some reason lines from Blake's poem London came to me: I wandered through each chartered street Near where the charted Thames does flow, A mark in every face I meet, Marks of weakness, marks of woe. Maybe it's just important that we all recognize how widespread suffering is, and be able to see the...