Good People

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From the kindness of my parents 
I suppose it was that I held 
that belief about suffering 

imagining that if only 
it could come to the attention 
of any person with normal 
feelings certainly anyone 
literate who might have gone 

to college they would comprehend 
pain when it went on before them 
and would do something about it 
whenever they saw it happen 
in the time of pain the present 
they would try to stop the bleeding 
for example with their own hands 

but it escapes their attention 
or there may be reasons for it 
the victims under the blankets 
the meat counters the maimed children 
the animals the animals 
staring from the end of the world

© William Stanley Merwin