You will, no doubt,

receive your reward in Heaven,

she said to me with an air of superiority

and down at heel, run of the mill

lack of charisma; I knew she didn’t have the money

to pay me, I wasn’t doing it for reward,

just to help a fellow human being

in a moment of distress

but still

she had to bring Heaven into it,

she had to tell me that her belief,

the conviction that by doing something good

you must automatically become

entrenched at the feet of a God.

My reward was here, right now,

it may have been a small thing,

perhaps nothing unusual

in the scheme of it all,

I did it because I was able to,

it was human,

and like any other human

I am weak in the face of some obstacles

and yet can roar like a lion,

the king of the jungle

or at least my own imagined domain,

when the moment is right.

I aim for no reward,

whether I am vulnerable or resilient

however

I have no need for a payment

I cannot use in a place

I don’t want to go.

 

Ian D. Hall 2017