What do we do with these numbers?

During March 22-25, 2012 I participated in the Split This Rock Poetry Festival.  One of the fine poets I met there was Oregon poet and teacher, Ingrid Wendt.  Her poem, "Numbers" shows the dramatic impacts that numerical information may have.  It is time to count.  Time to help.  Time to do right.

   Numbers     by Ingrid Wendt

                    Poem ending with words by William Stafford

   Iris says there's safety in numbers, when

   someone else arrives to share the house she won't

   need to lock the door

   When did Iris last read the news? 

           ###

   And did you, like me (age nine? age ten?), try

   dividing the total number of babies 

   born in one whole year (how many was it?) by

   all the days in the year, by twenty-four hours,

   by sixty minutes, sixty seconds, oh!

   So many new babies in one single second!

   (Any thought of how many new dead?)

           ###

   Now, what do we do with these numbers?

   The five largest airline disasters, in order

   Uncovered, the biggest mass graves to date

   Whoever is leading in thousands killed

   (Iraq, ourselves, Afghanistan, Palestine, Israel)

   How many less were lost in the towers than first

   reported.

   Numbers being the news.

          ###

   Earthquake, Haiti:  two hundred

   thousand dead, government sources say, or maybe

   two-fifty

   Two million homeless, three million

   needing emergency aid

   More than the great

   Indian Ocean tsunami, how high

   Reader, must the number be for us 

   to say it's time

   To contribute?

            ###

   Three miles away, I saw them

   burning, saw one

   go down

   went

   for my phone

   came back

   the other

   was gone

   Well, I

   was three blocks

   away, saw people running

   I was across the street

   saw people jumping

   Well, I had an afternoon meeting planned

   right there 

           ###

   Before the broadcast of body bags returning

   was banned

   Five weeks before "Shock

   and Awe," at least

   Six, the BBC said, and maybe ten million people protested in sixty

   countries around the world on one

   single weekend.

   According to Guinness, the protest in Rome:

   three million alone:  the largest

   anti-war rally in history.

            ###

   Sixty-five thousand Iraqi civilians killed

   since 2003, or one hundred seven

   thousand (different sources, take

   your pick).  Our war

   is on Terror, not

   that country.  Repeat, we are not

   at war with that country.

   Is this what the people of that country believe?

           ###

   And now, the need for an increase in troops,

   the only question: ten thousand? twenty?

   thirty?

   And now, the suicide increase in troops

   returning, the largest

   percentage ever.

            ###

   And here, the homeless vet on the corner.

   Here, the Cottage Grove family's telegram triggering

   earthquakes, aftershocks

   rumbling

   all the rest of their lives

            ###

   Imagine life is a great big seesaw and each of us

   a grain of sand.

   Your job:  to put your grain of sand

   where it belongs

   You never know which grain will be the one that tips it

   in the right direction.  (Pete Seeger, in concert.)

            ###

   Here's how to count the people who are ready to do right:

   "One."  "One."  "One."

Wendt's "Numbers" is from her collection Evensong (Truman State University Press, 2011).  She also has written about poet William Stafford (1914-1993) who was a conscientious objector during World War II.   I alert you to, in particular, her 2011 article for the National Council of Teachers of English:

"The Unknown Good in Our Enemies: The Poetry of William Stafford and Poetry From the Middle East".  The article contains four Stafford poems, as well as poems from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Israel, and Palestine, and offers an extensive list of recommended books, anthologies, websites, and films, for classroom use.