Thank you Ellen Bass

Let’s face it, sometimes people say dumb things. Whether we admit it or not, even the most "enlightened" among us have committed blunders similar to those described below. The thought of it makes me cringe. So the next time you are about to open up and say 'insert platitude here', instead say to yourself "French chocolates" and be comfortable with silence. Thank you Ellen Bass for the creative, evocative, humorous, on-point, reminder.

French Chocolates
by Ellen Bass

If you have your health, you have everything
is something that's said to cheer you up
when you come home early and find your lover
arched over a stranger in a scarlet thong.

Or it could be you lose your job at Happy Nails
because you can't stop smudging the stars
on those ten teeny American flags.

I don't begrudge you your extravagant vitality.
May it blossom like a cherry tree. May the petals
of your cardiovascular excellence
and the accordion polka of your lungs
sweeten the mornings of your loneliness.

But for the ill, for you with nerves that fire
like a rusted-out burner on an old barbecue,
with bones brittle as spun sugar,
with a migraine hammering like a blacksmith

in the flaming forge of your skull,
may you be spared from friends who say,
God doesn't give you more than you can handle
and ask what gifts being sick has brought you.

May they just keep their mouths shut
and give you French chocolates and daffodils
and maybe a small, original Matisse,
say, Open Window, Collioure, so you can look out
at the boats floating on the dappled pink water.

from a recent edition of The Writer's Almanac.

Comments

[jacki long]

Wonderful and so true.
Thanks Ellen Bass and Carol.

[SusanS]

Whoa, pony! I have a friend going through a horrific time and I don't know what to say except "I'm here". I think I will buy a small box of exquisite chocolates, draw a heart, deliver and not say a word. Thanks for this.

[Vicki in Michigan]

Excellent poem! Thank you for sharing it with us.

Having been on the receiving end of "we are never given more than we can handle," at a difficult time in my life, I will verify this statement is not just completely unhelpful. It is also maddening, and may result in a permanent reduction in relationship quality between the speaker and the recipient.

[Emie]

"French Chocolates" for the win! And, oh BTW, to SusanS... "I'm here" is the the best... sometimes just sitting in silence with the person is enough too.