Strangers
"A worried look that reverberates with dignity"
I recently watched “The Pianist” and “The Brutalist,” two films starring Adrien Brody playing characters caught in a world that carelessly strips people of their humanity. I wrote “Strangers” reflecting on moments in these films when people who have been dehumanized quietly recognize and uphold the humanity of others in the bleakness of world they inhabit.
Strangers
A widespread intimacy Things we cannot speak A knowing in each other That cannot be snuffed out By the ones who have lost it Who see your eyes and feel nothing But I see all of you Tucked inside a worried look That reverberates with dignity Asking endlessly, “couldn’t I be you?” And there, the sacred answer lives too In delicate melody, “we are all we have” Find where the music plays That is where the people live However ambient, however quiet It rings and brings us closer still Beneath a breath, beyond the backdrop I am overcome with life and loss Oh strange world that has made of us strangers