…we would assume that what it was we meant

would have been listed in some book set down

beyond the sky’s far reaches, if at all

there was a purpose here. But now I think

the purpose lives in us and that we fall

into an error if we do not keep

our own true notebook of the way we came,

how the sleet stung, or how a wandering bird

cried at the window…

-Loren Eiseley

I discovered this poem in the front of True Notebooks by Mark Salzman. It is an account of his first years of teaching at Los Angeles’s Central Juvenile Hall, a lockup for violent teenage offenders. He teaches writing and discovers, in the process of working with these boys, some of his own answers as to why we write. It is about finding hope in the hopeless and finding a voice. For most of these inmates, it is the first time anyone hears them. For some it is the first time they even discover what they think.

I love too, that he says his goal, “…had never been to save them or improve them or even to get them to take responsibility for their crimes. I was there because they responded to encouragement and they wrote honestly; surely that sort of interaction between teacher and student has value, even if it does not lead to success beyond the classroom.”

For me, it was a powerful reminder that everyone’s story is relevant and worth hearing. The trick of course, is to somehow write it in a way that makes readers want to know more.  Ah yes, there’s always a trick in there somewhere…

But the poem…the poem suggests that perhaps our purpose is to be a good witness to all that is and to faithfully record this in a way that has meaning for us. Some paint, some take photographs, some write and some remember. However, and whatever you do, just remember to pay attention. Notice. And really see.

I like that.