Tenderness

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Touch Announces What We Cherish

Good afternoon, Seized Readers.

Today we take a break from protest verse, from the inequities and injustices, to grasp the goodness many of us have in our present lives. We shift our focus to the idea of touch. While this blog conveys the power of poetry, the language of touch preceded our formation of words and sentences.

My dog Bella is a master purveyor and connoisseur of touch. Each morning, Bella waits for the sound of my husband and I landing on the loveseat before she comes bounding and cozies herself in the nook between us. She desires for her head and hind legs to be touching the members of her pack. She is our first dog to relish the cuddliness of blankets thrown over her. The affection of her long, warm tongue washes our faces, proclaims how happy she is to be a part of our small family. Bella is generous in her love.

Bella considering whether to emerge, any morning. Photo by Diana Ewell Engel

Whether or not you have a furry friend, you may hold the early memory of an elder softly touching your forehead to feel for a fever or placing a wet cloth there to cool you. When we are sick and at our most vulnerable, touch can become the language we crave.

In her poem, “Why We Need Bodies,” Judith Tate O’Brien turns us towards tactile tenderness and aids us in claiming what is tangible and of value in our day-to-day lives.

Photo by Annie Gavin, Unsplash

Why We Need Bodies

A song remains unheard 
unless it passes/ through 
some body’s throat. 
This morning/ I watched 
a wren nibble apart 
a beetle/ 
and digest it into birdsong. 
Even air needs/
loose-leafed trees 
to express 
its melancholy./
Everything invisible seeks 
a shape.

Remember how, 
in our dizzy 
younger years,/
we tried to pour 
the abstraction 
of love/ into the pink cup 
of each other’s mouth?

Now you kneel 
to tie my shoe 
(as you’ve done/ daily 
since the stroke) 
and I telegraph 
my gratitude/ by tapping 
the nipple mole cuddled 
in the small/ of your back. 
Nights I slide 
my fingers/ along the lines 
sloping down 
your cheek. I flatten/ 
my hand on your chest 
to check for life/
announcing its presence 
in your heartbeat 
steady/ as a dog tail’s 
happy thump 
against the floor./
When I turn over 
you lightly clasp 
my left breast/ which, 
for private reasons, 
you call Freckles.

-Judith Tate O’Brien

April 5, 2025 poem on Rattle.

Photo by Flaviu Costin, Unsplash

O’Brien provides context for this poem: “Since a stroke left my legs unusable, poetry has become more-than-ever important to me. It stitches together the pieces of life: my own, mine to yours, ours to the world’s. Although I’ve been a nun, therapist, wife, stepmother, and teacher, I believe the essential self is constant. I write to understand. Sometimes I glimpse connections only when I read the poem I’ve written” (Judith Tate O’Brien, 4/5/25 comment on Rattle.)

Share your thoughts and questions about “Why We Need Bodies.”

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Check It Out: Rattle Features Accessible, Alive Verse

Both poems by Judith Tate O’Brien, “Why We Need Bodies,” and “Home” which follows are featured on Rattle.com.

Rattle.com, like Poem-a-Day is an excellent, free resource for readers who enjoy verse and for writers who aspire to craft captivating poems by learning from the techniques of other poets.

The creators of Rattle proclaim a democratic mission: They seek to foster a diverse poetry community that reads, writes, and participates.

They contend it is poetry which is the most intimate of all literature. Consider these expressive lines in “Why We Need Bodies:” … Even air needs / loose-leafed trees to express its melancholy … // … Nights I slide my fingers / along the lines sloping down your cheek. I flatten / my hand on your chest to check for life / announcing its presence in your heartbeat steady / as a dog tail’s happy thump against the floor. /

Suddenly, we are with O’Brien and her husband: We hear her voice, see what is happening, feel the tender emotion she conveys.

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A fine poem enacts life at an intimate level.

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Today’s Extra Poem by Judith Tate O’Brien

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Home

for Gene, turning 75

Bring me all the synonyms 
for husband but don’t/ 
expect me to find the one 
I need. It’s buried

in a medieval story I once 
read about Bede,/ 
the monk who fell asleep 
and dreamed a sparrow

flew in a window facing 
east, swooped across/ the 
room, and out a window 
west. Glide and gone,

the Irish poet put it, calling 
the little space/ between 
dawn and stardust 
our brief home.

Home—the private journal 
where we learn who/ 
we are by recording 
who we love. Home—

where we are cozy 
breathing silence, and 
where,/ growing old, we 
grow easier to see through.

-Judith Tate O’Brien

July 6, 2017 poem on Rattle.

May we cherish who and what we have in this present moment—our loved ones, our homes—and remember that there are many who struggle to find such homes within themselves while far away, separated from dear ones.

Photo by Brad Switzer on Unsplash