The Invisible Tug

The World Has Need of You | Ellen Bass

everything here seems to need us…
—Rilke

I can hardly imagine it
as I walk to the lighthouse, feeling the ancient
prayer of my arms swinging
in counterpoint to my feet.
Here I am, suspended
between the sidewalk and twilight,
the sky dimming so fast it seems alive.
What if you felt the invisible
tug between you and everything?
A boy on a bicycle rides by,
his white shirt open, flaring
behind him like wings.
It’s a hard time to be human. We know too much
and too little. Does the breeze need us?
The cliffs? The gulls?
If you’ve managed to do one good thing,
the ocean doesn’t care.
But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth,
the earth, ever so slightly, fell
toward the apple as well.

Newton’s apple tree.

Recently I heard the above poem, “The World Has Need of You,” read out loud three times during the same week. Three times in a short span of days! In these times when people generally do not even read or hear poetry read aloud at all!

(Back when I was a parish minister, I sometimes used to say that one of the big reasons to go into the ministry is that it is one of the few professions where you get to read poetry out loud.)

(I hasten to add there are other fine reasons to be a minister.)

Anyway, after hearing that same poem read aloud three times in the same week, I felt the universe must be telling me it deserved a place in One Good Thing . . .

I am often drawn to Ellen Bass’s poetry and even Rilke’s poetry (he of the opening quotation, “everything here seems to need us…”). And/but, before using the poem as a springboard for reflection, I needed the poem to settle, to weave its way into my heart, as one does sometimes.

The first time I heard “The World Has Need of You” read was at an event where people were invited to share a poem they had either memorized (and could therefore recite) or simply loved enough to read. People were shy at first, but, after I raised my hand and recited one of the few poems I have committed to memory (Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” which I love, love, love), the floodgates opened, and people started sharing poetry. At one point, a teacher recited the Ellen Bass poem as an example of a poem he uses to teach his students.

So, let that settle in. Here was a teacher, essentially teaching his students that the world has need of them. A teacher reminding his students that, “when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth, the earth, ever so slightly, fell toward the apple as well.” A teacher giving his students the message that when they jump, the earth moves ever so slightly toward them as gravity pulls them back down. Bless the teachers who convey the message that the world needs their students! Bless the students who receive that message! Bless them all dearly!

The second time I heard the poem that week was at the opening of a church service. A different reader, a lay reader, read the poem beautifully, again transmitting that same reminder to all who were gathered: the world has need of us. Let me stop here to say that people of every age were gathered there — little children all the way up to ancient sages. The church was packed. Standing room only. All those people hearing that the world needs them.

The third time I heard that poem, the first reader I heard reciting the poem — he, the teacher of those lucky students — was reciting it again, but in a different setting. He was providing the opening for a special event in which some high school spoken word poets would be sharing their work at a poetry reading. He was offering the same encouraging message that the world has need of us — not only to the gathered audience, most of us with gray hair, but also to the young students who, for the very first time in their lives, were being paid a small stipend to share their art in public.

“You matter.”

“The world needs you.”

Huh. Imagine.

I confess I agree with the poet. It is indeed a hard time to be human. I too, know too much and too little. And sometimes — often, it seems — I do not know which way to turn. And the world, with its invisible tug between me, between you, and everything, has need of us. I take courage from the poem, for it reminds me my actions and words matter. I also take direction from the poem, for it reminds me my actions and words matter. Courage and direction. I need both.

In a matter of weeks, ever since January 20, my country has become something I do not even recognize. This past week, I have had Holly Near’s song Hay Una Mujer Desaparecida going through my head on a continuous loop, as I have tried to digest the news of ICE rounding up people and imprisoning them, sending some of them to prison in El Salvador, without warrants, without evidence, without trials — without even sentences with end dates, as far as I know.

Sometimes, lately, ICE rounds up people who are clearly here legally but are “guilty” of expressing opinions the current administration does not like (Columbia University student Mahmoud Kahlil who protested against Israel’s war against Gaza; Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk who co-authored an op-ed in the student newspaper criticizing Tufts for not answering student demands that the university acknowledge Palestinian genocide in Gaza).

Are we no longer allowed to express opinions in the United States? Is this what we are becoming? Is this what America has already become? Not my country. Please, dear God, not my country.

If you are unfamiliar with the song Hay Una Mujer Desaparecida, it harkens back to the junta in Chile, which began in 1973 with the overthrow of President Salvador Allende and the establishment of Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship under which thousands of people were “disappeared.” The song has a refrain:

“Hay una mujer desaparecida en Chile.” [Trans: “Another woman has disappeared in Chile.”]

“And the junta knows where she is.

“And the junta knows where they are hiding her; she’s dying.”

The rest of the song consists of names of women. Lyrical, beautiful names of women. Even though those women suffered terrible fates, even though the regime tried to silence and erase them, they are not forgotten. They are remembered in this song, and even here in this blog post. Even though they were treated with unimaginable cruelty, this song gives them back their dignity when their names are sung in such a haunting, yearning, and defiant way.

Hay Una Mujer Desaparecida, H. Near, Ronnie Gilbert, Weavers

“Everything here seems to need us.” It is true. Even if the need is simply to tell the story of what happened. What is happening.

“Some things have to be voiced over and over, they have to be shared and understood, they have to echo through time until they become truth and not just fancy,” says Pip Williams in her novel, The Bookbinder. I like the quotation, but I might say it a little differently: “Some things have to be voiced over and over, they have to be shared and understood, they have to echo through time until [the truth is finally recognized and accepted.]” The Chilean women’s names need to be sung, recited, commemorated, for example, until people remember the truth of what happened so that it will not happen again. Not there. And not here either.

One good thing we have is our ability to tell stories, even the stories that have been silenced. Especially the stories that have been silenced. In those stories that have seemingly been silenced, in those stories that lie buried in the rubble of the margins, some deeper truths exist. Thinking of stories in that way, and pondering Hay Una Mujer Desaparecida for day after day this past week, I have come to consider another story, this one also involving music, this one also using beauty to fight back against horror. It’s a popular story and one you have doubtless heard. But retelling it helps to continue to reclaim beauty where once beauty was destroyed.

In 1992 during the siege of Sarajevo, 22 people waiting in line for food in a downtown marketplace were killed by a mortar blast. In their memory, cellist Vedran Smailovic brought his cello to the ruined town square for 22 days — one day for each victim of the blast — and performed Albinoni’s Adagio in G-Minor. It might have sounded something like this (without the accompanying instruments):

Bing Videos

Vedran Smailovic, the cellist of Sarajevo

The music did not bring the slain people back. The music did not erase the sorrow, despair, fear, or anger. The music did not rebuild the ruined town square. No, the music could not undo the damage that had been done. But the music transformed the story into one in which the people killed by the blast became something more than hapless victims, and the music also brought that local story to the world stage. The tragic story of those 22 people came to represent a people who would go on, a people who would refuse to surrender beauty, even in the face of terrible destruction, a people whose story is still being told, even today, here in this blog post.

If you’ve managed to do one good thing,
the ocean doesn’t care…

So says the poet. And she is doubtless right about that.

But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth,
the earth, ever so slightly, fell
toward the apple as well.

So says the poet. And she is right about that, too. So, when we tell the stories, when we sing the songs, when we make the music, when we transform what has been and is being destroyed into a message that contains power and strength — wherever and however we do it — well, I believe, I really do believe, it makes a difference. Creation moves a little bit in the direction of that more positive message . . . and perhaps a little bit away from all that is ugly and hateful in our world. And maybe the powers that would aim to defeat us are weakened by our telling of the stories.

What if we really could feel that invisible tug between us and everything? And what if that tug could pull us — oh, what if it really could pull us — toward beauty and grace? Toward mercy and kindness? Toward compassion and understanding? What if we allowed ourselves to be pulled in that direction?

What if we resolved to listen to one another’s stories, to tell the stories of our days, and to reclaim the stories of those forgotten at the margins, as if that tug were real and our power to affect outcomes were real also? What if we lived our lives remembering that everything here seems to need us?

Love,

Sylvia

P.S. For those of you wondering about the fate of my cat, Little Stevie, following last week’s post: Subsequent testing confirmed a probable diagnosis of lymphoma. I have decided not to pursue any more testing or treatment other than comfort measures. However, for the last six or seven days, Little Stevie has returned pretty much to his normal friendly, hungry self. I cannot begin to explain it. If I didn’t know he were sick, I wouldn’t have any idea he is sick at all. It’s all a mystery to me. I guess the larger lesson here is: One day at a time; enjoy it while it lasts. Thank you all for your good wishes. xo