I am a Stranger learning to
Worship Strangers around me²
A Single thing is Sublime, which
Doesn’t fear Surrender to the Whole³
We’re not individuals – but part of a
Huge, Implacable, Elemental Design⁴
The Self is merely a formal necessity: it
Allows the Infinite relations of Self to Other⁵
We are caught in an inescapable Network of
Mutuality, tied in a single Garment of Destiny:
What affects One Directly, affects All Indirectly⁶
No one is an Island entire of itself – Everyone
Is a piece of a Continent, a part of the Main⁷
Read Life’s Meaning in Each Other’s eyes⁸
The Whole isn’t just greater than its Parts:
It’s their Counter-Argument, Antidote⁹
The Composite Life we live is Us¹⁰
¹ Primo Levi tr. original, To My Friends
² June Jordan, These Poems
³ Carson McCullers, The Sojourner
⁴ Richard Wright, Black Boy
⁵ Maurice Blanchot tr. unknown, The Writing of the Disaster
⁶ Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail
⁷ John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
⁸ Susan Marr Spalding, Fate
⁹ Christopher Spaide, Give Me More Time
¹⁰ Mary Oppen, Journal on Visit to Israel 1975