Empathy: A Poem

By Margaret Zheng

It slips through my fingers
runs down, flows soft -
the drizzling of others' tears.  It's mighty hard to catch the feeling.  It takes the
MIGHT of mind to turn your telescopes of passion
into the hearts of strangers besides you.  Besides you, I mean - not
beside, as in "next to" - for do you really think you are known to yourself
so much more than others are?  I mean, you could be cold, prejudiced, racist
inside.  Go ask the researchers at Project Implicit.  But if you would try -
would really try, not just because your social studies teacher told you to -
would slip the moccasins of others onto your tender feet
and rub out of your soles the blisters sore from canvas shoes that trudge the long,
brambly trails that are these persons' lives - you will then know why
I name them "persons" and not a blurred mass of "people."  To know
the person - that is not just right, but is truly
to be human.  To feel, deeply.  We never need to experience alone,
if we let ourselves feel.  It is so difficult to feel, sometimes.  I
might pen a touching poem such as this, and never feel a word - such is the allure of
abstractions.  But I try. 
I listen.  I think.  I imagine.  I feel.  I
empathize. 

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