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....
Today, Mike Rabow read, "When Great Trees Fall" by Maya Angelou, in honor of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's passing. Since Friday, I've cycled between shock, grief, anxiety, and gratitude. Losing Notorious RBG was devastating not only on a personal, human level, but also on a societal and political level. We owe her a debt of gratitude for all her work on equality and road she has paved for us. We owe it to her and many others, including Maya Angelou, to continue the struggle for equality, against social injustice of any sort. We can be. Be and be better. For they have existed. And today, it feels like we must be and better for so much is at stake.
Thank you, RBG, for blazing the trail as long as you could and for being an outstanding role model. May we pick up the torch you have passed us and hold it high.
When Great Trees Fall
Maya Angelou
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed...
Yesterday's Symptom Management Service meeting poem, read by Dr. Mike Rabow, was "I Am Not I" by Juan Ramon Jiminez.
“I Am Not I”
TRANSLATED BY ROBERT BLY
I am not I.
I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
who remains calm and silent while I talk,
and forgives, gently, when I hate,
who walks where I am not,
who will remain standing when I die.
The title in and of itself seemed appropriate for yesterday, which to me seemed like a day that was not a day. The orange-hued fire haze eclipsing the sun and turning the day into an endless night. My social media was flooded with pictures of the tinted air that blanketed the Bay Area and beyond. Eerie, brownish-orange apocalyptic air mixed with a heavy layer of fog in my neighborhood. By 2:30 pm, it felt like 7:30 pm and I was ready to stop working and go to bed. What more will 2020 bring us?