Vox Populi
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Ann Fisher-Wirth: Empathy
In the long long bliss of the breastfeeding years, I belonged to that rocking chair where sun filtered through the window and the leaves of the summer pomegranate shifted slowly in the hot June air. My babies latched on greedily with grunts and coos, and I cradled them, gazing into their eyes as they gazed up as if from the bottom of the ocean into mine. I walked them hours upon hours, bathed them, changed them, sang to them. When they woke with nightmares, I went to them. When they coughed with colic I sat with them, holding them in the steam tent. When they cried, I rocked them, soothed them. So where do you get off, Musk, telling us empathy is the fundamental weakness of Western civilization? Without empathy none of the babies that come hurtling into the world would make it past their first birthdays. What neglect was sown in you when you were small, you now a victim of your own greed that sends its roots like plantar warts through you?
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Copyright 2025 Ann Fisher-Wirth
Image: Freepik
Ann Fisher-Wirth’s books include The Bones of Winter Birds and Paradise is Jagged (Terrapin Press 2019, 2023). She teaches at the University of Mississippi.
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Fiercely true.
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I was lost in a reverie of nursing my sweet babies so long ago, and yes, brought back to reality and how I worry for them and their children and how fear brings hate and how hate only eats me up inside. This is a powerful poem I will read again and again as I try to regain what I fear I am losing.
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We all fear for our babies as the country craters…
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More truth in this poem than in a dogepile of decisions from empathy- challenged Doge City. most Moms understand what the musks of this world never do. And Ann Fisher-Worth writes it so beautifully.
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I agree, Jim. “A dogpile of decisions… from Doge…” Hahaha
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“greed that sends its roots like plantar warts through you”–such a powerful image!
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It is such a contrast to the sweet images of most of the poem.
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So powerful. Thank you.
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The poem sneaks up on the nazi, doesn’t it? Hahahaha.
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After reading, I sat at the screen quite a while, trying to come up with a few pithy words to describe the effect on me. Finally gave up. But oh my: “The poem sneaks up on the nazi, doesn’t it”! Yes! Hahaha.
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Hahahah!
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I cradled them, gazing into their eyes as they gazed up as if from the bottom of the ocean into mine –
This is what you gave to your children and they to theirs.
And this is what Elon Musk wouldn’t recognise if a tsunami came for him.
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Exactly!
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