To connect. To converse. To respond. To listen. To silence.

Through poetry.

"…shared space without human touching doesn't amount to much."

So writes Pádraig Ó Tuama in his poem "Shaking Hands". A poem that you immediately recognise as coming from the pre-Covid "era".

Is this what it's like to live in the middle of the formation of an "era"? To read lines of poetry with a bittersweet ironic twist that could not have been on the poet's mind at the time they wrote it? To feel that ironic twist in your heart as you try and sit with the reminder of what continues to remain absent from our everyday lives? To consciously place slightly greater distance between you and the oncoming person on the pathway as you become inevitably a little more proximal? To hear yourself talking of such a thing as a "pre-Covid era" as if it is a settled thing, while at the same time speculating as to how the dust might settle on all of this after 6 months? Maybe a year? Maybe 2 years?

To read that line of poetry in this particular week in Ireland is…hard to describe. I can't say that it's arresting because it has such a sense of deja vous about it that it is certainly not surprising. I can't even say "depressing" because this pandemic is like one long seep - a seeping that allows joy and laughter to periodically emerge as it sometimes slows to a tantalisingly almost stop; yet a seeping that never really stops. Or has defied all attempts to stop it completely so far.

Like many others I have countless reasons to be grateful for the blessings in my life. And this may be another reason why it's so hard to honestly and fully describe the impact of that line of poetry in the week that is in it. How could someone like me possibly talk of anything negative or dark or heartbreaking compared to the suffering of so many others?

I suppose the answer might lie in the secretly shared reality that suffering is not always evoked. Sometimes it might not even be evocable. (Is this the opposite of irrevocable?) Like some of the most cherished elements of life, it is not always visible nor audible.

A friend told me during the week of how overall 2021 has been a wonderful year for them on the personal and professional front. But they too had had their moments of heartbreak and joy cheek by jowl with each other. One day they received news of their son's engagement. The next day they heard that another family member had received a diagnosis of cancer.

While unpacking this mystery, in my heart I heard them make a complete commitment to absolute presence to all that happened in their lives. Their view seemed to be that we cannot control so much of what lands at our feet each day. Suffering and joy, sorrow and delight, are as inevitable as each other. Instead of trying to escape one in pursuit of the other, they seemed to be talking of establishing a much deeper rootedness, a stability of soul, that would fully embrace all, knowing that all will eventually pass.

What a haunting paradox.

In his poem "Poetic Art", John Gould Fletcher wrote:

Ask not a purpose of all things, / No dogma with fixed mind debate, / But loose each mood to beat its wings / Freely against the bars of fate.

Welcome each sorrow with full heart, / As freely as you welcome bliss; / Never to flinch is the best art, / And to receive all, giving is.

His first verse reminds of this line from Khalil Gibran:

For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

And while there is truth in what Gibran wrote, we also know that thoughts themselves can form a most insidious and invisible cage of their own around our hearts - delude us into thinking that our view of the world is the only view. With a human touch of some kind - any kind - the touch of a thoughtful word as much as of a gentle caress - our thoughts can blossom into their full beautiful potential. In the absence of such touch, they tend to become hot housed in a dark all their own.

Rumi wrote a poem with a similar theme to that of Fletcher's - where he encourages us to welcome our sorrows as heartfully as our joys. Even if they empty our house and leave us bereft, we should welcome them in to the Space that remains.

If this is a theme and message that has been repeated across centuries, there might actually be something in it. As the dark settles ever earlier, and we set ourselves a little further apart from each other for an indefinite period of time, I think that Ó Tuama's line can be read a little more hopefully than I initially thought. If we acknowledge that "human touch" is more than just a physical concept - as we have come to realise over the past 19 months and counting, it is all the more essential that we find that which connects us across the gap that remains ever present - for now.

Which brings me to a poem I wrote some months ago - and with which I will leave you to form your own thoughts - which I ask you to share with someone else. Anyone.

Inner View

Rest from Seer-seeking - and in-spire an inner view.
I think I am a be-er when in truth I am probably you.

We will forget and we will remember
In the Demi-darked and Demi-lit ember.

We will sit and we will stand
While tracing our palms upon the Strands.

I will forget and I will obsess
About me and you and nothing-ness.

My heart will ache while I profess uncare
While into our Field we dare to stare.

Tomás Ó Ruairc 21 November 2021

I don't speak because I know that something is true. I speak because I hope and know that authentic conversation between us will unveil the sense of Truth a little more. Tomás (Inspired by the writings of Mark Nepo)