there was a fruit stand on the corner.....

a young mother worked there, day in and day out...
she brought her three, small children with her every day.....
one wondered if they attended school...
they would sit on old crates a few feet from there mother from sunup to sundown....
the two girls each had a doll....
the boy had nothing...
even in the rain and snow,
one could see those children sitting on the corner....
it was tragic....

yet at lunchtime every day, the overworked mother would leave the fruit stand
and buy each child a bagel from the shop across the street....
and as the children sat back down on their crates with their plain bagels,
the mother would sing songs to them...
and play her flute for them...
and these kids would be overcome with happiness and gratitude....
laughing and singing with their mother.....

it was a portrait of a struggling family,
in a cold and selfish city....
passersby didn't seem to care....

yet they had love.....
moreso than most.....