A good friend, a poet, recently sent me this poem from a fellow poet, thinking it might be appropriate for the Potlatch Tertulia. Though the poem is ten years old, I think it speaks to us now and helps us understand what we might do during this time of national angst.
Doing Nothing
by Dan Gerber*
When I passed him near the bus stop
on Union Square while the cops
cuffed his hands behind his back, while he
said, “I didn’t do anything,”
I didn’t either,
do anything but look away,
a little afraid they might cuff me
if I paid too much attention,
and walked on still wondering
what he might’ve done
and still more what I
might’ve done
*Dan Gerber, “A Primer on Parallel Lives,” Copper Canyon Press, 2007