logotipo

When I was maybe eighteen or so I saw a documentary called “When I’m 21”. It showed a handful of homeless Glaswegian teens telling why they were homeless, how was their life before, and what they would like to do either for their 21st birthday, or with their adult life. I knew that homeless children existed but it was something I associated with the Third World or with much bigger towns. I had more surprises; most of the children were out in the streets because their parents had split up, and the parent with whom they had stayed had taken a new partner that didn’t get on with the kid, so the children either ran away or were thrown out (Spain is no paradise, but we still keep such tight concept of family that I’ve never heard of such a situation). I also remember the documentary because the teenagers did their on voiceover and it was my first contact with any variety of English other than Standard British English or Standard American.

This is just an introduction to a poem by Langston Hughes:

Beggar Boy

What is there within this beggar lad
That I can neither hear nor feel nor see,
that I can neither know nor understand
And still calls to me?

Is not he but a shadow in the sun –
A bit of clay, brown, ugly, given life?
And yet he plays upon his flute a wild free tune
As if Fate had not bled him with her knife!