Feast
Listening to one another’s stories, and those of our patients, is a mode of caring. Poet and editor Jacinta White captures this idea beautifully in her poem “Feast," and takes the concept a step further: after pain has been witnessed, it can more easily be put to rest. Toni Morrison writes about the same concept in the novel Beloved, when Baby Suggs tells Sethe (the main character): "Don't study war no more. Lay all that mess down. Sword and shield."
Feast
by Jacinta White
They both would come, pain in rounded arms
like holding a basket full of freshly picked
string beans. Lay them on the kitchen table
for the other to experience -- finger the pain's bumps
and bruises; the spots, tender and tough --
and you know, shake the dirt off. One by one,
they would share their stories, taking turns holding
the other's pain. Sometimes silent, but still
holding the other's pain until one would nod,
throw it away.
This poem was first published in Jacinta's chapbook, "broken ritual," by Press 53 in 2012.
To learn more about her creative work, look here.
