Rewarding Encounters
By Don Iannone

Special people are everywhere,
Like the group at last night's baseball game in Erie,
Some sat in wheelchairs, trying desperately
to clap their shaking hands,
One convulsed, and stared vacantly at the early evening sky,
I wondered what she sees that I don't,
Another shrieked in inextinguishable joy as her attendant
handed her a dripping ice cream cone,
Their contorted, crooked faces captured my eyes, making me wince,
as I watched them watch me in fascination,
I smiled at an old man stroking his sparse gray whiskers,
Hello, I said, and he extended his trembling hand toward me,
which I clasped, fighting back the tears,
Our realities fail us, all the time,
especially when we think we really know
what it's like for someone else,
Special people are everywhere,
Some of the most special are those with less
and they miraculously do more with what they have.