Try to Remember Some Details

by Yehuda Amichai

try to remember some details. remember the clothing
of the one you love
so that on the day of loss you’ll be able to say: last seen
wearing such-and-such, brown jacket, white hat.
try to remember some details. for they have no face
and their soul is hidden and their crying
is the same as their laughter,
and their silence and their shouting rise to one height
and their body temperature is between 98 and 104 degrees
and they have no life outside this narrow space
and they have no graven image, no likeness, no memory
and they have paper cups on the day of their rejoicing
and paper cups that are used once only.

try to remember some details. for the world
is filled with people who were torn from their sleep
with no one to mend the tear,
and unlike wild beasts they live
each in his lonely hiding place and they die
together on battlefields
and in hospitals.
and the earth will swallow all of them,
good and evil together, like the followers of korah,
all of them in their rebellion against death,
their mouths open till the last moment,
praising and cursing in a single
howl. try, try
to remember some details.

(poem discovered via invisible stories)

I like this poem. At first it made me feel sad. It certainly has a certain doom-and-gloom-iness about it. But I also find comfort and strength in the idea that we are all tied together in our fate, that we are all a part of the same dual-natured creature. It reminds me that there are no absolutes.
the earth will swallow all of them, / good and evil together... / all of them in their rebellion against death, / their mouths open till the last moment, / praising and cursing in a single / howl. 

It also helps me remember that I am a big-picture person. I like trying to organize small details, but really my brain works better in broad strokes. I tend to jump to conclusions, make over-arching generalizations, and hold it all as the truest truth.
Yet, here in Mexico I find myself frequently overwhelmed by the enormity of the big-picture. Teaching English isn't as simple as colors and shapes, verbs and nouns. There's a mountain of disadvantages and difficulties standing in front of each student, preventing them from ever effectively learning a foreign language, despite the fact that it's a required subject at a much younger age than in the US. Women's rights aren't just about rape and machismo. They're tied to education costs, wage laws, the availability of clean water, and much more. Some days it's hard to feel like I'm doing anything more than treading water.
On those days, I practice being a details person. I try to inhale deeply the smell of chicharrones being fried across the street, define exactly the color of the bougainvillea blooms growing on the fence next to the bus stop, remember the pitch of a child's laughter.