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 Which poem floated your way today? 


Below is a poem I introduced to my T’ai Chi students on Monday night. I was saying: "National Poetry Month is a daily reminder of poetry, which means paying attention to life. All wants to be known, seen, heard, tasted, smelled, touched, admired, experienced, cherished, cared for... interconnected… Is it not our duty and privilege as humans to bear witness to others’ joy and suffering? How do we listen to others? How do we listen to ourselves?"


News 

 

although we would prefer to talk 

and talk it into psychological the- 

ory the prevalence of small genocides 

or the recent disease floating 

toward us from another continent 

we must not    while she speaks her eyes 

frighten us    she is only one person 

she tells us her terrible news    we 

want to leave the room we may not 

we must listen    in this wrong world this 

is what    we must do    we must bear it 

 

Grace Paley, 2007 

 

This poem is from Fidelity, her last poetry collection, completed just before her death in 2007. I have always enjoyed Grace Paley’s directness and simplicity, earthiness and humanity – moving and inspiring. May we not forget her legacy. 

 

From Wikipedia:  

Grace Paley (December 11, 1922 – August 22, 2007) was an American short story author, poet, teacher, and political activist. Paley wrote three critically acclaimed collections of short stories, which were compiled in the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, The Collected Stories in 1994. Her stories hone in on the everyday conflicts and heartbreaks of city life, heavily informed by her childhood in the Bronx. Beyond her work as an author and university professor, Paley was a feminist and antiwar activist, describing herself as a "somewhat combative pacifist and cooperative anarchist." 


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