Begging for a Seat in School: A friendly reminder for the new schoolyear

Dr Abe V Rotor

The school year will soon open.  We will be accompanying our children to their schools.  Relatives and friends too, will go back to school, maybe we ourselves are among them.  But not all can go to school, like this beggar boy, the infirmed, the very poor, or for whatever reason.  Thanks to Google for this blog.  Thanks to the outreach program of the University of Santo Tomas, Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (School-on-air) of DZRB 738 AM, thanks to our blog followers and viewers, and radio audience, for carrying out the Multiplier Effect.  Special thanks to Google and staff.
 

 A reproduction of an untitled painting by an unknown artist

A disturbing scene to Maslow -
could he have been wrong?
What is self-actualization
to the striving throng?

What's good is the Bastille trilogy -
pillars of modern society:
equality, fraternity,
liberty - sans dignity?

Motherhood words may come easy;
they cannot be mistaken,
for the lips that speak of promise
are easily forgotten.

And the world goes on as it seems;
a beggar boy, its conscience:
lost youth, lost hope, lost future
in the midst of affluence.

The door is jarred to full view
and knocking wouldn't lend an ear;
indifference makes man blind
or takes him to the rear.

He who feels for the needy
with but some coins is a fool,
in a world deaf to a poor boy
begging for a seat in school. ~

NOTE: A student of mine from Iran at the UST Graduate School left this reproduction as a souvenir. The painting was made by an unknown artist, apparently belonging to the post classicism at the dawn of realism.