Poem, based on a true story:

He seemed not at his wit’s end,

Nor mad at the world at all;

A makeshift home was all he had,

Beside a concrete wall –

A plywood box, but large enough

To house his body small.

He wasn’t even begging,

Nor was he looking sad;

There seemed no real reason

To grieve or to be mad,

The world seemed unrelated

To the little things he had.

When music fell upon his ears,

It was the wind’s refrain –

A threatening prelude signaling

The imminence of rain.

The alley cats, his neighbors,

Kept mewing all in vain.

It wasn’t long before the rain

Had squashed his home and all,

Except to let him spend the night

Beside that concrete wall.