Sometimes it feels like there are a lot of broken things in the world. How can we help to heal our world and each other? Remembering a short poem might help everyone remember that there is hope and healing everywhere and that we can each do our part.
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
— Emily Dickinson
I remember as a teenager, home alone one afternoon, listening over and over to David Bowie sing “Is there Life on Mars?” while gazing at the cover of his Hunky Dory album. I longed to be able to articulate the feelings I had inside me, and somehow this British man wearing makeup came closer than anyone else I’d yet encountered. I remember wondering– if my mother listened to him sing “Is there Life on Mars?” would she at least partially understand the desperation, the hopelessness, the profound alienation I felt all the time? I never dared to ask her. My friends and I got high instead of talking honestly about it all.
I didn’t know yet that I’d come to identify the vague loneliness and misery I felt all the time as heavily influenced by sexism and racism, classism and homophobia, in a declining Midwestern industrial town. I didn’t really get yet, that there were problems that were systemic, that the tiny lives of my friends and me were part of a much larger picture. It wasn’t till I was a young adult, beyond the reach of parents and school systems, accompanied instead by friends who deeply saw and heard me, that I could begin to name the parts of who I was and what I knew.
Last night I went to the “Be Heard Minnesota Youth Poetry Slam Series, 2014,” sponsored by a group called TruArtSpeaks. I saw there a group of young people who have found their voices, and who are speaking and heard at the intensity level I longed for myself as a teenager.
What happens when adults like Tish Jones, the Executive Director of TruArt Speaks, devote their lives to making young voices heard? When their coach Khary Jackson (AKA 6 is 9) takes time to work with them to express themselves clearly and with passion? When a packed house of family, friends, and strangers at a local theater pays and cheers and tells them they have changed us by speaking their hearts?
This is what healing looks like, I found myself thinking, even with wounds that are still gaping, in a world of oppression and violence and addiction and all of the other reasons that these kids and other people suffer. This is where healing begins.
Seven out of the nine contestants were young women of color. They, and the two young men—one African American, one white and openly gay–spoke about the ravages of racism and sexism and homophobia in their lives, of parents who are absent or abusive, of schools designed for them to fail. And there we were, a cheering, clicking, community of support, hanging on their every word. What does that do to a young person, I wonder.
For me, as an adult, as a white person, as a person with power and privilege in the culture, such an encounter also means healing. My healing begins with listening, and believing, young people, and marginalized people, the way I wanted my own mother to hear me. It begins with paying attention. And it extends to supporting the organizations and leaders who elicit these voices, in understanding that without people like Tish Jones and Khary Jackson, the safety to tell stories in that theater would not have been present for the young people on the stage.
This is what healing looks like. Led by the courageous, the ones who speak truths denied by louder voices, supported by love and respect. This is what healing looks like.
I feel profoundly blessed to have attended the slam last night, and to be represented as a Minneostan by the six young people who will move on to the national levels of competition as spoken word artists. But, as the MC kept saying over and over last night, This isn’t about competition. It’s about community, and leadership development, and having a good time together. And we did.
by Pablo Neruda
(translation by David Breeden)
Now, let’s all count to twelve,
then keep still.
For once on this earth,
let’s speak in no language.
For once let’s stop
and not move our arms so much.
That would be a fragrant moment,
without hurry,
without movement;
we would all be together
in an instantaneous . . . disquiet.
The fisherman in the cold sea
would not hurt the whales,
and the worker in the salt
would look at his broken hands.
Those who prepare garish wars–
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors–
would don clean clothes
and walk around
with their brothers
in the shadows
doing nothing.
Don’t confuse what I want
with true inaction:
life is only what you do–
I don’t want anything to do
with death.
If we can’t be unanimous
as we move our lives so much,
maybe do nothing for once,
so that maybe a great silence could
interrupt this sadness–
this never ever understanding each other,
and threatening each other with death–
maybe then the earth
can teach us
now
when everything seems dead,
then
everything was seen as alive.
I’m counting to twelve,
and you, become
silent!
I’m leaving now.
There are gifts that
come of breathing,
that come of blood
driving through veins,
no charge. Just being.
One is the noise of existence.
Another is when the noise stops.
After the theater
of the self has closed;
after the season of the self
goes to reruns, music
begins, slow, silent.
Then, you hear . . .
it was the thought itself
that created the chains,
the blinders. When the
mis en scene is struck,
gifts come, without
breath, without blood.
So, evening fell on
you, didn’t it? And
what day. Did not
know what had
broken. You had
not expected it to
have gone so far,
the year. Did not
expect to have
rounded again from
light to dark on
this day. And it’s
surely some saint’s
day or other. Some
thing recurrent to
mark life’s measured
beat. To mark how
life, in some long
and startling
pattern, goes on.
The turtles go
out of their water
this time of year,
slow on roadways,
slow to mating
somewhere,
or slow to dates
with car tires.
No, there’s no
enlightenment–
there’s no one
there. (That’s
Buddhism 101
each day teaches.)
No, there’s no
virtue–
there’s no one
there. Only
being.
Lost in this
movement I rub
the cat’s head,
a black cat, a warm,
cloudy morning.
There’ no cat.
There’s no I. There’s
only purring,
this congeries
of movement
to movement–
to car tires,
to this ache
of loss
and fulfillment
in each instant.
There is
this flow
only to be
and savored.
What better way to
get people praying
than to remind us
of random chance?
What better way than
the cold logic of air
rising, falling, killing
here, not there;
this one, not that.
Where I come from
we name them
by a year: 2011,
1957, 1925, and
remember deaths,
695, 255, 12.
What better way for
the screaming winds
to set us praying
than the cold logic
of random chance?
What better way
to hold sanity and
loved ones close than
to set to praying?
Where I come from
we know the scream
of the green clouds
well; we know to hug
the floor close; where
I come from the wind
teaches us to pray.
Some days are like others
And some days Richie
Havens dies. It’s more
Than a dream that a
Guitar can sigh and take
Some lucky ones with it.
Muddy. Richie. Robert–
Temples. Churches. BP,
They bow before the hands
That move those strings.
Even the devil, money
Himself, will say uncle
To one song like that.
Art. Richie. A dream.
Light is no more than
Fingers on strings right.
It’s Poem In Your Pocket Day,
and like a springtime bird
still dazed by the snow,
I dart, twisting my head,
in unbelief at all the food.
It’s Poem In Your Pocket Day,
and everywhere is a poem.
Twist your gaze, grab some
unbelief: the snow is gone.
Look. Look at the food.
http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/406
I was braced for a strange and challenging week with my partner out-of-state for a work trip, but then our little babe was hospitalized for an infected (and previously undetected) cyst at her throat, and things really got surreal. Somewhere in the midst of the past five days (only five?!), we started making some fun out of learning all the new vocabulary words. Along the lines of Innosanto Nagara’s lovely book A is for Activist and Yusef Islam (formerly Cat Stevens’)’s beautiful song A is for Allah, I’ve made my own list, with the help of many Facebook Friends. This being National Poetry Month (one of my favorite months of the year) makes this Alphabet Poem even more timely. If you or your kid has ever been hospitalized, feel free to fill in the missing letters–or alternate versions to the ones we have here–in the comment field! And we are wishing our little one and all of you much healing and good health.
A is for Afebrile (no fever).
B is for Bummer: because it just is, when you’re in the hospital.
C is for Cyst. And Clowns! On our last day in the hospital, the clowns came by, complete with a ukelele, and bubbles. That was nice.
D is for Doctor, definitely: there are so many of them, especially in a teaching hospital!
E is for ENT: Ear-Nose-Throat specialists.
F is for Family & Friends: so essential when things are challenging.
G is for Gentle Giraffes, keeping R company and helping her sleep with soothing sounds…
H is for Hospital.
I is for IV, as in Intravenous. Having our baby get 2 IVs put in her…well…the word “iiiiiiiick-scruciating” comes to mind.
J is for jugular which is where you definitely do not want the doctors to put an IV.
K is for Kisses; we ALL need more kisses when we are in the hospital.
L is for love. So much love.
M is for medicine.
N is for NPO. Nil per os — Latin for “nothing by mouth” — no food, and no nursing. Words we (and Robin!) would be happy not to hear any more.
O is for “Oh my goodness. What now?”
P is for Parents (or guardians or loving people). or Patient. Being the patient, being patient…
Q is for questions, so many questions, all around…questions we were asked repeatedly, and questions we asked repeatedly, and questions we were scared to ask, but did anyway, grateful for the doctor’s calm and compassionate responding.
R is for rounds. So important to be ready for the doctors’ rounds, sometime between 6:30 and 8am each morning.
S is for sleep…or sterile…oh, stethoscope! Definitely: stethoscope. Stealth-o-scope.
T is for toys! Robin loved the colorful wooden block toy she picked out from the children’s toy room–where toys could be borrowed and later returned to be cleaned and then put out again, on shelves at the kids’ height.
U is for the umbrella of love covering our family–kindnesses expressed and felt from near and far.
V is for…?
W is for Waiting. So much waiting! And W is for We. We are in this together. We will get through this together.
X is for X-Ray of course!
Y is for…?
Z is for….?
Your turn!
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Quest for Meaning is a program of the Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF).
As a Unitarian Universalist congregation with no geographical boundary, the CLF creates global spiritual community, rooted in profound love, which cultivates wonder, imagination, and the courage to act.