"A Small Needful Fact"

22 December 2016: Searching for another Ross Gay poem ("Sorrow Is Not My Name") led me to this poem, "A Small Needful Fact," and it stopped me in my tracks. Sometimes when I think about Eric Garner, I think about my brother. They were, at the end of their lives, similar in size and suffering from breathing issues. I remember my mother saying that if Ryan had been held down like that, he might have died, too. And, like so many black men who have recently died in police shootings, my (white, obviously) brother struggled with mental illness and addiction issues. (I am not saying that about Garner.) I wonder if we might have lost him much sooner had he been black, especially when he got into trouble.

And then along comes this poem which tells me something I didn't know about Garner--that he, like my brother, worked in landscaping. He, too, planted things in the earth. I don't know how to tie this all together in some elegant, profound way. I suspect that there isn't a way to do so...something about connection despite differences, but also about the protection that privilege offers... I don't know. But I like this poem for making me think about all of this as I sit here tonight.