The Man Outside His Shack

There sits the man in the fading sun
The air still hot and the labor done
Outside his shack a victory won
And tears down his face that just begun

Twas ten years when missionaries came
They did not come to reduce his pain
nor give him food nor God to proclaim
For if they had he'd remain the same

No, they brought a school those years ago
which brought his daughters great things to know
which brought escape from a one deathblow
And filling their souls with God aglow

No more would they rubbish through the trash
No more be covered in soot and ash
from burning their dead who could have last
had they known what's known of middle-class

They left for a greener side of life
not looking back to that land of rife
The man was left, proud, with tears of blithe
while stars illuminated his strife