How do you measure what you have learned?
When you grow up, past getting marks, beyond writing tests
And it’s hard to remember what you didn’t know
When you think back after you know it.
Let’s say I was scared on the day when I sat
Among the men with ALS and their wives
And what was the fear of? Getting it wrong!
Being insensitive, causing more suffering
To people who already suffer too much through no fault of their own.
And the funniest thing, looking back on it now
With a storyteller’s memory of how it unfolded
That I stopped being scared and started feeling confident
One hour in, when one of the men finally spoke up and said
“My hope was taken. I have no hope.”
ALS scares me and always would have
Yet talking in ernest with this frightened man
At the point where he says that he has no hope
And would have scared a younger me
Strikes me now as utterly doable.
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