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Miller Williams: "Compassion"

I had to read a poem to lower-elementary students today, and I picked one that was surely pitched a bit too high:

Have compassion for everyone you meet,
even if they don't want it. What seems conceit,
bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign
of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on
down there where the spirit meets the bone.

 I read it to little kids because I figured, even if it flew over heads, it would still do some kind of useful work. Kids can detect passion in your voice, and if the poem moves you, it will likely stick with the kids. Even if the only thing that sticks is: Hmm...it's possible for an adult to be moved by a poem.

This poem is plainspoken, but it does sneak in some poetic devices. "Meet" rhymes with "conceit"; "seen" is an echo of "sign," and "bone" is an echo of "on." All of that seems deliberate to me. Also, there are fun metaphors: internal "wars," a magic spot where "spirit meets bone," un-hearing ears, un-seeing eyes (which seem to stand in for the uncomprehending intellect).

You might say the poem is preachy, but I think the tone is hard-earned. This guy was looking back on many years of life. I learned today that he--the poet, Miller Williams--had wanted to write early on, but a school official had discouraged him. "You don't have a gift for language." Deterred, Williams instead studied animals. (Poets tend to like animals. I'm thinking of Marianne Moore, and of Elizabeth Bishop, who wrote about a fish.)

Midway down his path, Williams decided his school official was wrong. He ended up writing thirty-seven books. I wonder if he was thinking of that official--and of that official's own private "wars"--when he wrote "Compassion."
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