MERI Center Blog

Interconnectedness and "If You Knew"

 

This week's Symptom Management Service poem was "If You Knew" by Ellen Bass.  It was the perfect choice for my mood the past few days as I was writing our monthly newsletter, which focuses on connection.  In this time of social (physical) distancing, it feels like we are so far apart from each other at times and yet, we can find ways to make even small, seemingly ephemeral connections that have meaning.  I get to sit in two poetry workshop each week, "lurking" in the background, listening to poems created in under 5 minutes, soaking in the imagery and emotion they evoke, thinking about how those words resonate in me. I have not met most of them in person and yet, I feel connected to each of them.  I feel blessed by each of them through their words. 

Listening today to "If You Knew" by Ellen Bass just highlighted that even the briefest interactions can have a huge impact and we should strive to remember that the smallest ounce of compassion can make a difference. 

If You Knew

by Ellen Bass

What if you knew you’d be the last
to touch someone?
If you were taking tickets, for example,
at the theater, tearing them,
giving back the ragged stubs,
you might take care to touch that palm,
brush your fingertips
along the life line’s crease.

When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase
too slowly through the airport, when
the car in front of me doesn’t signal,
when the clerk at the pharmacy
won’t say Thank you, I don’t remember
they’re going to die.

A friend told me she’d been with her aunt.
They’d just had lunch and the waiter,
a young gay man with plum black eyes,
joked as he served the coffee, kissed
her aunt’s powdered cheek when they left.
Then they walked half a block and her aunt
dropped dead on the sidewalk.

How close does the dragon’s spume
have to come? How wide does the crack
in heaven have to split?
What would people look like
if we could see them as they are,
soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
reckless, pinned against time?