A Perspective on “Touch” a Poem About Unity
By Harry Fagel
Unity is the theme, and while often trivialized it remains the word describing a path of great importance to our very survival. While writing the poem Touch for the current Nevada Humanities Exhibition Series, Unity: Community, Family, and the Future, I spent hours scouring my mind for the truth of unity, without (hopefully) falling into the trap of cliche or the dismal truth of trite and pithy samplers oft perpetuated by bored crafters and presented for sale at hipster flea markets.
While I joke, there is nothing funny about our increasing divide in all aspects of our human experience, and our failure to be unified in our quest for equality and truth could result in our great tragedy, if not our actual extinction.
Touch attempts to remind us that when we build, we all progress, as much as we all are inflicted when we choose to destroy instead.
I have begun journeying with my kindness held in front of me, both shield and gift to all in front of me. I philosophically filter my experiences, trying to grasp the connection within our universe to not just our independent experiences, but to our actual connection to other people and what that means for our world. This self-experiment has been active within me for some time, and the results have been surprising and interesting.
Walking with kindness, as I call it, has resulted in a reforging within my mind of my general sense of self and, strangely, it’s profoundly affected my perception of the world around me. I frame my thoughts with a sense of “how can I help” rather than “what is your problem. “ This simple shift in conceptual awareness has brought positive results and general good vibes to my life, so the experiment in unity continues.
Aesop's fables were a staple for me growing up. I read and re-read them so many times as a child, I feel they had a significant impact in the development of my moral code. The concept of unity is grossly overstated in the story of the sticks. A father hands out a bunch of twigs to his sons, and they easily break the separate twigs. The father then bundles the sticks together and they are impossible to break. The moral: United we stand, divided we fall.
While a simplistic allegory, it resonated with young Harry very much. I reckon old Aesop was on to something here. Years later I realize the complexity of life makes memes and tropes (and clever samplers) somewhat ironic, but the truth is certainly in there, buried inside the hyperbole.
So Unity. A big word with wide connotations. Regardless, our failure or success as a species is invariably connected to our ability to coexist (unify) with not just our political ideologies across a broad spectrum, but our ability to unify with people from a diverse strata, animals (many on the brink of extinction) and the planet itself. We must find a way to link our human hearts regardless of our differences and find a way to come together. The alternative could be the end of life as we know it and an inability to achieve our true human potential.
So my poem asks you to ask yourself:
When I damage the soul of another, do I damage my own soul as well?
We shall see. We shall see.
©2022 Harry R. Fagel all rights reserved.
The latest installment of the Nevada Humanities Exhibition Series, Unity: Community, Family, and the Future, is on display at the Nevada Humanities Program Gallery through July 27, 2022, and is always viewable online. Harry Fagel’s poem Touch is as part of this exhibition.
Photo courtesy of Harry Fagel.
Harry Fagel is a Nevadan who retired from the police business at the rank of Captain and who has written poetry all his life. He loves his family more than anything.