Personal/Universal

The 22,000 staggers us, makes our minds reel at the awful, incomprehensible amount of death. But it's the personal stories that rock us, that get to us where we live, that bring the universal closer to our hearts.

The interview with the monk at the local Buddhist center: "I'm from Sri Lanka, in the southern part where all this is happening—" And then he burst into tears. When was the last time you saw a Buddhist monk burst into tears? How can we not follow along?

The man in Indonesia, a Muslim, who lost his wife and children and wanted to bury them in dry land according to Islamic tradition. "What can I do?" he cried. "There's no dry land anywhere. What can I do?" How can we not wish we could help him?

The film of a group of people clinging to what was left of a pier, surrounded on all four sides by water and slowly being swept away. How can we not cry out, "Put the damned camera down and do something!" But what could anyone do but be swept away? But damn.

We're drawn into the momentous by the individuals and their heartbreaks. How can we possibly take in 22,000 deaths—and rising? The personal stories draw us into the heart of the universal because that's all we know, all we can take in.

Loss

When the sun
falls behind the sumac
thicket the
wild
yellow daisies
in diffuse evening shade
lose their
rigorous attention
and
half-wild with loss
turn
any way the wind does
and lift their
petals up
to float
off their stems
and go

—A. R. Ammons