My thoughts have been hazy and jumbled the last month under stay-at-home measures. I haven't blogged in years, but an upside to this crisis for me is a commitment to return to writing. I am beginning to see the trees clearly through the lifting spring fog outside. The trees are showing up. The poems are showing up. Clarity of thought is showing up. I return to some blogging with a photo, a poem and some reflections. Sign on for the feed to join me more regularly, if you find these musings on a word or a phrase to be meaningful in one way or another.
A love of poetry may be an enigma to many. I can only say that poetry finds me when I need it most, elicits tears, and cleanses unlike any other written medium. Leaving Early spoke to me yesterday, and I must insist you hear it read aloud by Pádraig Ó Tuama with an Irish lilt here on The On Being Project. The On Being Project had the wisdom to create a vehicle for you to immerse yourself in a single poem with Poetry Unbound. I guarantee that you won't be sorry you took the time. It was chosen as a poem in gratitude to health care workers but really it will be a gift for your soul. My thoughts follow.
Leaving Early
Leanne O’Sullivan
My Love,
tonight Fionnuala is your nurse.
You’ll hear her voice sing-song around the ward
lifting a wing at the shore of your darkness.
I heard that, in another life, she too journeyed
through a storm, a kind of curse, with the ocean
rising darkly around her, fierce with cold,
and no resting place, only the frozen
rocks that tore her feet, the light on her shoulders.
And no cure there but to wait it out.
If, while I’m gone, your fever comes down —
if the small, salt-laden shapes of her song
appear to you as a first glimmer of earth-light,
follow the sweet, hopeful voice of that landing.
She will keep you safe beneath her wing. ~
Today is Easter Sunday. This week is Passover. How apt to
have read that the nurses in a New York hospital begin their shift in prayer.
Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindi, no matter as long as the faith of every
health care worker is represented. Every prayer is welcome and deserving of
breath. No one is worthy of more. No one is worthy of less. The shift will be
filled with life and death in its starkest form. Each soul yearns to be lifted
from the depths to find words of consolation and condolence. COVID-19 spares no
one. Somehow, a crisis such as this lay bare the commonalities of our humanity,
the kernels of truth our clouded vision fails to see most days of our
existence.
I wonder.
Why do these workers, by and large, continue to show up
despite dwindling personal protective equipment, knowing the very contagious
virus lurks in their midst? They face long hours, hallways filled to
overflowing, and few resources to combat the illness. All the while their lives
continue full bore with families of their own, obligations and responsibilities
of unspoken depth and breadth remaining outside the hospital on the other end
of a long commute as an ocean of emotions ebbs and flows just below the skin.
Duty comes to mind. Compassion. Kindness. Perhaps, scrubs are donned with
little thought as simply the right thing to do.
For a stranger.
And not just the health care workers. The cleaning staff.
The security guards. The administrative assistants. The lab workers. Those who
stock the shelves, gather the laundry, collect the trash. Of course, essential
workers cover many other fields as well in transportation or food production or
manufacturing or public safety. And, so many are likely very different from you
and from me – they may have different color skin or an accent. They may have
voted for the opposite political party or come from a different part of the
city or state or country. They may practice their faith in a building like
yours but one that displays a different religious symbol.
No worries.
They show up with compassion and kindness as days melt into
one another. They would care for you. They would care for me. We could be
cynical. It may be all about the paycheck. Would you quit your job right now?
Let’s not romanticize this. Many are underpaid and hazard pay certainly isn’t
commensurate to the risk. Showing up is a radical act. Irrational. For the
least among us with the greatest needs. An act of love. Of hope. The church
doors may be closed for worship. The temple doors shuttered. The holiday
gatherings diminished. Forget the ritual. Open your eyes and take a look
around.
Remember.
When the crisis hits. The virus or the natural disaster or
an act of terror. Someone shows up. Steps up. Helps. Then, we want the
institutions we so often disparage and under fund and deem unnecessary to be
there for us. 100%. The hospital. FEMA. The military. Academia. We want the
Federal coffers to open wide even though we complain about our taxes and cut,
cut, cut. We want the social contract between business, government and society
to rapidly and solidly support us even after years of kicking the stool right
out from underneath ourselves.
Not me? Not you?
First and foremost, stay home and keep everyone safe. Then,
remember to show up today as well as your many days down the road. Show up fully
informed with new resolve to fix and mend and aid those known, those not yet
known, those we may never know. Show up for the people across the aisle, on the
street, in the institution, down on their luck. Show up to give generously and gratefully.
Show up to question and challenge and expect better. Show up because what you
do matters and is the right thing to do. Show up, because you are humbled and
grateful and exercising what may be the holiest of acts no matter your faith.
Show up.
