Friday, January 27, 2023

Ellen Bass: If You Knew

A beautiful poem reminding us to be mindful, to be compassionate and kind, to actually notice and see each other, and to remember how precious life is and that every being we encounter matters and has value. The sacred thread is woven through us all. Just imagine how different our world would be and how different each of us would be if we remembered this as we went about our daily lives. Just imagine if we knew... 🙏 Molly

Photo by Molly

 If You Knew
 

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?
 

Ellen Bass
From The Human Line 
Ellen Bass reading "If You Knew"

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