When I Heard a Poem for the First Time

How To Belong Be Alone by Pádraig Ó Tuama

• The video of Pádraig's audio and Leo G. Franchi's lovely video and Gautum Srikishan's perfect music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgZT6UJocRs

• The poem, read by Pádraig Ó Tuama: https://onbeing.org/poetry/how-to-be-alone/

Please consider watching the video, or reading the poem, or listening to the author read it while you listen. It will only take 3 minutes and I think you'll be grateful.

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Last night, I got to hear poet Pádraig Ó Tuama read this poem aloud. There were a few minutes in between the Q&A and the book signing, and the host said, "I think we have time for you to share another poem." 

He said, "This is a poem about death." I don't know if he chose this poem in the moment, or he knows that this poem will make this audience catch their collective breath when he reads us the last lines:

You are
such an
interesting conversation.

You belong

here.

I got home and immediately re-read the poem, printed a copy to tuck into my notebook, and then found the incredible "Poetry Film" made by On Being (a podcast I highly recommend). I posted a quick note on Facebook with the video link and texted it to my family and a few friends, too. Then I quietly re-read it again, and again, like a prayer or a mantra that provides a cadence and a calm for breathing, for relaxing a troubled mind, for slowing down an anxious heart.

Pádraig Ó Tuama's words in that auditorium, and again on the page, and yet again with the visuals and audio from Leo Franchi and Gautum Srikishan's collaboration - this poem is grounding me in reflection (living is hard), and in hope (living is hard, and yes, Lisa, please be alive). The insights from Pádraig in every stanza are my story: at parties, in my broken body, the layers of anxiety. And I'm wrapped in comfort with his reminder that even through those pains, I can "practice being alive". I have listened to this poem 20 times since yesterday, and read each line slowly. What a gift, to find a poetic roadmap that seems made just for me, that ends in a joyous destination: alive, belonging... just for me.