A Poem about the Pandemic Went Viral

And people stayed at home

And read books

And listened

And they rested

And did exercises

And made art and played

And learned new ways of being

And stopped and listened

More deeply

Someone meditated, someone prayed

Someone met their shadow

And people began to think differently

And people healed.

And in the absence of people who

Lived in ignorant ways

Dangerous, meaningless and heartless,

The earth also began to heal

And when the danger ended and

People found themselves

They grieved for the dead

And made new choices

And dreamed of new visions

And created new ways of living

And completely healed the earth

Just as they were healed.

poem by Kitty O'Meara, a former teacher and chaplain from Wisconsin, in trying to process the worsening news surrounding the catastrophic spread of the coronavirus. She had adopted the persona of a poet writing years before the Spanish Flu, then even made up the idea that it presaged that pandemic and now this one. From O Oprah's mag: “a poem written in 1869 by Kathleen O’Mara” that was “reprinted during 1919 Pandemic.” Nevertheless, its sentiment and message are just as profound as if it had serendipitously reemerged from more than a century ago. "It was just a post on Facebook. I don't know that I even considered it a poem," said O'Meara. "You know, it was just a way of offering some comfort to my friends and myself." 

I loved that she pretended, that she pushed her imagination and created an illusion that seemed to span time.