SONGS FROM SEVERAL HEARTS
Carrying our shared song of humanity.
Songs that are laments.
Songs filled with hope and regret.
Why do so many good people suffer from poverty,
reduced possibilities, cruelty, wars, migrations
lack of care, hatred in an extraordinarily rich world?
.04% own 45.8% of the world’s wealth, while 52.5% are in poverty
published by VISUAL CAPITALIST
It’s easy isn’t it?
As a species we have set up institutions, systems,
written laws, declarations and constitutions
that mainly protect and support property rather than people.
As a species we have allowed the loquacious brutes and the psychopaths,
whose eyes are on profits and power,
whose dreams are of more power and more wealth,
to kidnap our beliefs.
Through the force of their media owned popular culture,
the media owned news,
the media owned educational publishing,
they have created what is called false consciousness –
a set of beliefs which the rich define for us as the best we can hope for,
which is in fact the worst for us.
So, through their control of the major institutions
surrounding the structure of our lives
and through their media and education systems,
we have been convinced by them that Margaret Thatcher’s TINA THEORY
- that There Is No Alternative is all we have to guide us through our lives.
I’m in a hospital.
A heavyset dark-skinned young man takes my blood-pressure,
and asks every so gently “are you in pain?”
I shake my head ‘no’
Over 3 days he attends to me numerous times.
An unstated warmth builds.
One day I say, “Do you mind me asking where you’re from?”
He looks at me, a touch of appraisal and tells me
“I come from violence.”
I nod ‘yes,’ meaning I understand that being a part of him.
Do you know where Bangladesh is?
I nod ‘yes’ again.
He explains that in his country, many people are killing many other people;
that his father is under threat because he had been in public office;
that the young man had gone to Malaysia to study business and marketing
and to live for a while working every job under the sun.
But he wanted to come to England which he believed was peaceful and kind.
He hesitated and asked, “you’re not English are you?”
Quietly I said “Originally American”.
Confused he asked, “Why did you come here?”
I told him about my history.
That is, I tell him why I’m not a racist.
He thought for a long moment, looked at me, deep eyes, many thoughts,
then, “we’re the same aren’t we?”
Again, we appraise each other for a long moment, sensing that truth.
He moved towards me, put his hand on my shoulder,
gave it a delicate squeeze and said, “I will look after you.”
He did.
Overall, 18.7% of staff report a nationality other than British. For doctors this figure is 35.0%, and for nurses it is 27.2%. 18% of doctors and 16% of nurses report an Asian nationality. Most NHS staff in England are British, but a substantial minority are not.20 Financial Times Nov 2023
A middle-aged nurse’s assistant, end of the afternoon,
asks me if I would like tea, coffee, hot chocolate, warm milk?
I look at her exhaustion, her pale lined face, her gentle kindness,
and ask, “How long is your shift?”.
She tells me, “Twelve hours but, you know, it takes me an hour in the morning
to get up, get ready and to drive here.
And in the evening we hand over to the night staff,
make sure everything is in order including all the notes,
and then from this ward, it’s a twenty minute walk to the staff parking area.”
She smiles. “That’s how it is.”
“Before I worked in a school as a TA (teaching assistant).
The teachers wouldn’t give me the time of day.
We TA’s were beneath them.
Here it’s different.
The doctors, even the heads of departments always have a kind word.
Makes a team spirit, all of us here to do our best,
to help each other and to help the patients.”
“What of your children?” I dared.
“Gone now, but I worry for the young nurses.
Don’t know how they survive,
what with their children, day-care, transport, shopping,
and then being here for so many hours a day,
and at the end of all that,
having to worry about paying the heating, the food, the rent,
having to worry about when the food bank is open.
Not right, none of it’s right.
And you know, we all know, they want to sell it off.”
Research by the London School of Economics in 2019 about what percentage of the NHS has been turned into privatised services; ‘ it’s estimated that rather than the reported 7%, the real figure was roughly 25%.
I am in my bed, post op, watching life go by,
framed almost as a 16x9 film format
by the curtain, the ceiling and the top of my bedstead
playing out in some moments as comedy,
not because people are silly or foolish,
but because, as a species,
we’ve created terrible ordeals for our lives and for our earth.
And sometimes it plays out as implied or actual tragedy.
I see the young doctor (perhaps Palestinian) with whom I spoke earlier.
I wave him over.
He is serious, guarded.
I ask him another question about my condition.
He appraises my use of language, perhaps my accent
and answers me carefully and in detail.
I thank him, pause and then, “I don’t know how you do what you do?”
Immediate suspicion and a touch of defensiveness kicks in;
he is used to nationalist/racist bullshit.
“What?” he demands sharply.
“Cutting people open, working on live bodies as a surgeon.
That mystery is part of why people like me think of you as demi-gods.”
Slowly his tension eases.
I tell him, “I have been speaking with the nurses and other grades.
Clearly it’s not about the poor pay and the trying conditions.”
“No it’s not” he says as he very slightly smiles.
“My guess, if you don’t mind, is it’s about service, about giving to others,
about how saving normal people’s wellbeing and lives is the right thing to do”.
His eyes roll up for a second and then come back to rest on me.
He smiles more broadly, nods ‘yes’ and touches my arm with his fingers.
“What do you do?”
I tell him I make documentaries about artists
and normal people, often involved in cooking for others.
Unlike you who must feel very proud at the end of a day’s work,
I make films, they are sent off into the world
and I hardly see a response.
"His face broadens into a wide smile.
This is beautiful.
Truthfulness, curiosity, searching for shared values,
appreciating the very existence of others,
allowing ourselves to be open and without judgments about skin colour, religion,
national origin, quality of language
helps to create a deeply connected, kind and trusting world.
His messenger goes off, he pries it out of his belt,
reads it, seems disappointed,
looks at me and says, “I’d like to speak with you again, have to go.”
He disappears into the shadows of the long corridors,
carrying with him our shared song of humanity.
FOUR IN THE MORNING
When you sleep next to me
and I
restless
"it's four o'clock
only four o'clock"
my nostrils caress your warm body
your honey brushed skin
danced upon by shards of city light
and your freckles
worn by my thousand kisses.
When you sleep next to me
and I
restless
know it's sunny
somewhere east
I remember headlines
I see their stricken mouths
I divert
to watch the tree of your dreams
growing through the hours.
When you sleep next to me
and I
restless
know
that I secretly celebrate
what has happened to them
has not approached
your secret jewelled reverie
and I remain between
stricken
suspended
waiting for the belly of dawn
to be tickled by your leaves
at four in the morning.
Beautiful, Robert. Really beautiful.
Get well soon.