Hello Caller,
I’m Lucy Bellwood, and you’re receiving this email because you expressed an interest in The Right Number, a friendly, experimental phone line.
This session’s prompt is about gratitude. I won’t try to craft a pithy introduction because there’s already a poem that sums up my feelings on the subject. Here it is.
Thanks
by W. S. Merwin
> Listen
> with the night falling we are saying thank you
> we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
> we are running out of the glass rooms
> with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
> and say thank you
> we are standing by the water thanking it
> standing by the windows looking out
> in our directions
>
> back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
> after funerals we are saying thank you
> after the news of the dead
> whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
>
> over telephones we are saying thank you
> in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
> remembering wars and the police at the door
> and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
> in the banks we are saying thank you
> in the faces of the officials and the rich
> and of all who will never change
> we go on saying thank you thank you
>
> with the animals dying around us
> taking our feelings we are saying thank you
> with the forests falling faster than the minutes
> of our lives we are saying thank you
> with the words going out like cells of a brain
> with the cities growing over us
> we are saying thank you faster and faster
> with nobody listening we are saying thank you
> thank you we are saying and waving
> dark though it is
>
Call and tell me about someone you would like to thank. You don’t have to know them personally. They don’t have to be alive. They just need to have roused your gratitude in some form.
To leave a message, dial 1-503-673-6267. You’ll have three minutes to answer however you’d like after the pre-recorded prompt.
I’ll be keeping an ear out, dark though it is.
Lucy
—
P.S. I spoke to local journalist Destiny Johnson about the genesis of this project and what it means to me to be a secret keeper. If you want a little more Right Number in your life, you can watch our interview here.