seems i've fallen and i can't...

i drove very close to his sleeping body yesterday afternoon in the alley.
so close it makes me shudder.
with his dark clothes, i thought he was someone's trash put out.
i wasnt totally paying attention, fidgeting around, so i was surprised to look over and see his wrinkled dirty face, serere as a baby's, in sleep.
of course, i had somewhere to be, thus no time to stop.
a shining example of yoga off the mat if there ever was one.
while cooking dinner for friends, i checked to see if he was still around to take him some food but found emptiness where his bed had been.
emotions rampant.
get up! not working.
pema says: "when the rivers and air are polluted, when families and nations are at war, when homeless wanderers fill the highways, these are traditional signs of a dark age. another is that people become poisoned by self-doubt & become cowards."
and i'm supposed to sit with this???
why do i have a warm bed and he has the ground, a few feet from my bed?
like siddartha out of the kingdom, how was i so distracted before that i didnt realize just how hard life is?

more conversations from the alley...
7-year old chubby girl w/ a bright yellow bandana & matching shirt bouncing behind a 30-something guy down the alley...
but why do you drink alcohol?
look, i dont smoke pot, i dont do drugs, i drink. thats it.
but why? dont you want to remember your life & what happened yesterday? when you get drunk, you forget everything...
bless her.