The Geography of Pain

Oct 21 2017

The geography of pain

a lifetime accumulates

following the news.

So now

I have a map of the world

that begins with Auschwitz and Birkenau

and ends with Falluja, Rwanda, Rakine, Sana'a

Mugabe, Pol Pot, Hussein, and Mao.

Too long

for only once through the alphabet.

Ignorance is bliss, they say.

If only I could unlearn

the suffering and sin,

somehow unsee

what the camera witnessed

through its unblinking lens.

Or become at ease

with the uncomfortable truth

of proximity, and sameness,

our empathy

for those who could be us.

Because it's hard

to identify with strangers

across oceans

and datelines

and barriers of tongue,

resigned, as we are

to the human condition.

While the arithmetic of one

in whom we see ourselves

is a sucker-punch

direct to the gut;

so deeply touching

we feel what they felt.

But even then

the list of places

yellows and fades,

like the newsprint

on which the headlines were written.

The weight of suffering

that would be unbearable

if you could see every face,

inhabit the bodies

that were burned and raped.

The bloodied limbs, hacked-off

at a warlord's whim

a cleric's cruel dogma.

So now, I'm mostly inured to the agony.

And being incapable of faith

cannot console myself

with illusions of justice

a loving God.

Because while the righteous died horribly, burned alive

the complicit deny, skeptics contend,

their killers fatten

the corrupt collect.

And while the survivors proclaim

their prayers were answered,

what about the dead

who as fervently prayed?

How I would I love to see

the same map from space,

green, and borderless.

But the names and places weigh on me

and I cannot let go.

A custodian of memory

who by forgetting

would betray the past.

I first tried my hand at poetry in 2001, after hearing Michael Enright interview Billy Collins on his Sunday morning show on CBC Radio. Billy Collins' conversational tone, wry humour, and everyday themes demystified and simplified the whole idea of poetry. He didn't take himself at all seriously. And since I'm not much of a story-teller (not to mention prone to instant gratification!), poetry seemed a far more tempting medium to this aspiring writer than the short story's longer-form narrative; or worse, the even more feared novel, and its years-long commitment!

But I've also had to restrain myself from being too political in my writing. Or from bewing an advocate, a a champion of causes. Because I generally find this works poorly in poetry. It tends toward sanctimony and self-righteousness and proselytizing, and ends up sounding presumptuous and pompous and preachy. I'd rather argue that kind of thing, as well as read it, in an essay than a poem. As a result, I've pushed myself to be more personal; not confessional, which makes me uncomfortable, but still personal. Which is also hard for me, since my life is rather boring and my life experience limited. So it was another Michael Enright interview that led me to revisit this poem, which then consisted only of the opening stanza. Here, it was with Dennis Lee. He recited some of his well-loved children's poems. But he also read some heartfelt and hard-hitting political stuff. And I suddenly felt free to be political, as well. Not in a partisan sense, but in the sense of someone engaged with the world.

I'm also a news junkie, and realize that over the decades I've constructed my map of the world through the narrow aperture of tragedy and natural disaster and human perfidy. I have all these places in my head – mostly exotic and remote – and they are all touched by evil or misfortune. (And an astute reader will notice that the poem is concerned more the misfortune that comes from human depravity than natural disaster: not unexpected, from a misanthrope like me.) It was this unfortunate geography that gave the poem its starting point. Although I much prefer the view from space that ends it: “green, and borderless.”