To Find a Voice

The World Food Program was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its response to the surge in global hunger across the world brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. David Beasley, the program’s executive director was found in the field — Niger– elated to turn the spotlight on the millions who struggle to have enough to eat. Niger is a landlocked country and prone to draught and famines. The people around him were clapping and dancing with joy. Oh turn your swords into “ploughshares.”

The American poet Louise Gluck (pronounced Glick) won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I do not know her poetry well, but bookstores will soon be replenished of her volumes. Louise Gluck is a lyric poet who writes about both the unamiable and the good.

Wild Iris by Louise Gluck

At the end of my suffering
there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:

from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater.

Perhaps she was chosen not only because she is an incredible poet who writes about our humanity, but because she most specifically speaks to our fears of suffering and dying at this particular moment in history. The fear of being buried alive in the dark earth looms over us. Hear the words again:

“whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice: from the center of my life came a great fountain, deep blue shadows of azure water.”

We will return from oblivion and our voices will be strong. Our singing will be robust. Start now to find it. Find things positive and listen to your voice. Give food to the hungry and cook with friends. All of this will make our journey bearable. Bravo to the World Food Program for your work for desperate and thankful people all over the world. Thank you to Louise Gluck and all writers for your voice of hope that is refined by the depths of suffering.

The photo is of a woman at an internally displaced persons camp on the outskirts of Dinsor, Somalia. (New York Times, August 13, 2017)