Bag Ladies

On the street

I see bag ladies

Singing and humming 

A gospel spiritual

With no sleep

And soaring notes

Wail and boom

Here comes the spiritual

Here comes the bag lady

Asking me for money

You know I'd like to

So I do

You can say they should get a job

But life has been so cruel

You can say they should stop 

Singing their gospel spiritual tune

On the street

Such sweet melodies

And they evoke Mahalia and Etta 

If you could do much better

Than them

Then you can pay for the show, too

The bag ladies are your sisters and daughters and mothers and grandmothers too.