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 ...