TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown. 

You’ve probably heard this quote from Fred Rogers, of the famous PBS show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

“Look for the helpers” is a phrase I think about a lot, and one I see people sharing on social media, or quoting in interviews. I’ve been seeing a lot of scary things in the news, and I’m looking for the helpers. I’m looking for the people we need in this moment. We need courageous legislators and judges. We need activists and civil rights attorneys. We need skilled doctors and nurses. We need freethinking professors and university administrators. We need climatologists. We need historians. We need urban planners. We need experts in public policy and community organizing. We need all of these helpers right now.

But here’s the thing: I’m not any of these. I’m a poet. I’m also a parent, and an occasional educator, and—now—the host of the only poetry podcast on public media. I’m proud of all of these things, and I want to use them to be a helper in my own way. I think we all want to do good with the skills, talents, and resources we have. 

To ask, “What can a poem do to help?” is to gesture toward a bigger question: “What can art do?” What can literature, or music, or film, or performance, or visual art do for us, particularly when we are struggling, individually and collectively? 

I think art can articulate the beauty and horrors of being alive. I think it can make people feel seen and understood, and therefore less alone. I think it can bear witness to what our planet is enduring.

Today’s poem wonders aloud about what it can do to be a helper. And, I’d argue, in its articulation, in its witnessing, it is a helper. 

This is a poem by Rachel Dillon.

A dead whale can feed an entire ecosystem
by Rachel Dillon

but in this poem nothing dies.

Alone in the poem, I make myself
brave. No—I show brave
to my body, take both to the ocean.

Come hurricane, come rip current,
come toxic algal bloom.

In March, I drift past the estuary
to watch an eight-foot dolphin
lap the Mill River

like a cat pacing a bathtub,
sick and disoriented.

Biologists will unspool her empty intestines, 
weigh her gray cerebellum.
She swam a great distance to die

alone. I’m sorry—I lied. I can’t control 
what lives or dies. I need a place

to stow my brain. To hold
each moment close as a sand flea
caught in my knuckle hairs.

Please, someone—
tell me a poem can coax

oil from a sea bird’s throat.
Tell me what to do 
with my hands—my hands—

what can my hands do now?

“A dead whale can feed an entire ecosystem" © 2025 by Rachel Dillon. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 27, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets. Used by permission of the poet.