Life of Wry

At Monday’s celebration of David and the day he first stood at 3rd and C collecting compassion definitions, emcee (and former Poet Laureate of Davis) Andy Jones presented this poem:

The Giver – a Poem for David Breaux

By Dr. Andy Jones

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.

— William Wordsworth

“The only way to survive is by taking care of one another.”

– Grace Lee Boggs

Gathering and accumulating, getting and spending,

We stockpile markers of success,

Hedges against downturns, such as those revealed daily in the news.

Enmeshed in fear, the primary source of superstition and cruelty,

We sometimes feel as if we sit beneath a downspout of downturns.

Before long, we stumble under the weight,

Becoming accumulators of accumulations.

We look askance at the man who doesn’t play this game,

The man who sheds rather than accumulates,

The man who reads instead of wading screen-deep into the muck,

The man whose private resolutions are sacred agreements.

Blessed be the rare man who awakens!

Such a man sees what most of us see only at the end:

That kindnesses offered and received matter,

That connections offered and received matter,

That compassion matters. Perhaps it matters the most.

Such treasures of the mystic, such treasures of the poet, 

such treasures of the well-read philosopher

cannot be gained through accumulation.

Like a twinkle-eyed smile received from a tall stranger with a notebook,

Such treasures grow through the giving.

Think of your favorite causes, think of your favorite movements:

Someone had to be there at the start who was willing to give and give and give.

Partake in the riches of a twinkle-eyed smile,

Partake in the riches of the curious poet,

Partake in the riches foreseen by a saint of compassion

By giving as he gave, by giving it all away.

~~

I also liked what he said afterward:

“I thank David for his friendship and for the ways that he continues to light a path before us, one that will require many steps yet to understand and to set into motion.“