Once upon a time,
My ancestors
Believed all they had done
And suffered would be washed away
Once they were to drink its waters;
Those poor dead souls—
No one ever told them
When alive,
Remembering is what we have to do
Lest we forget
We’re all on the brink
Of dying.
It is our life's work, I am begining to understand, to bear witness. I think of Walt Whitman's The Body Electric, and too, I think of this that William wrote to me in response the other day:
ReplyDelete"Too painful to bear, Erin, and yet there is that recurring need to suffer through it. For when it comes to pass that we are not moved by the sorrows and joys of this world, when our shells have become so hard that we no longer feel, we, in our living death, are capable of unspeakable things."
xo
erin
This is indeed a beautiful, thoughtful response from William--thank you for including it in your
ReplyDeletecomment, Erin.