ChicoSol considers guest commentary and essays for Monday’s Reader’s Voice column. Send your idea to ch**********@***il.com. Danielle Alexich is ChicoSol’s resident poet who occasionally contributes to Reader’s Voice.
Step into the gentle hum
of an outdoor market
for evidence of kind people.
Far from the freeway’s furrowed
brows and white knuckles,
relax in the autumn shade.
Oxygen is now poetic.
An elder with deep smile lines
hands you a sprig of grapes.
Be an amateur in this
courtyard of color
where cases of inlaid wood,
abalone plates
and blown glass cordials
drink in the sun’s last hour.
Watch the creek ribbon past
as produce gleams from the stalls.
Help yourself.
The world outside has been stuck
in a bad performance.
Walk through row upon row.
Find forgiveness.
Each stranger is a saint.