July 5: Out of the Woods, Infection Records, Poem from "Kyrie"

I do think Ellen Bryant Voigt's poetry collection Kyrie has a lot to teach in this time of pandemic.  The poems, a series of sonnets about the 1918 Spanish flu that killed millions of people, speak both to the desperation and humanity of that epidemic.  Bryant puts names and faces with the history, and, in doing so, creates a tapestry that really speaks to our current times.

As I've said in a few recent posts, we aren't out of the woods yet with Covid-19, despite all of the citizens of this country who flocked to beaches and fireworks displays yesterday in celebration of Independence Day.  A few months ago, you couldn't buy a bag of Cheetos without encountering neighbors and friends wearing masks and gloves, keeping a six-foot bubble around themselves.  Now, masks are scarce in public places, and mask-wearing has become a political issue, rather than a health issue.

In short, people have lost their minds.

Other countries across the planet have closed their borders to people of the United States, including Mexico and the European Union.  Instead of freedom and democracy, our nation is now famous for setting daily coronavirus infection records.  Over 50,000 yesterday.  Yes, the death rates are trending down, but we are only in the first or second week of this summer surge.

I'm simply stumped.  I don't get how a country as advanced as the United States in medicine and technology can be so far behind the curve in fighting one of the greatest threats the modern world has ever faced.  It doesn't give me a whole lot of hope for the rest of this year.

Of course, I may be wrong.  I hope I'm wrong.  I don't want to be right, and I will be the first to apologize publicly to all you non-maskers out there if Covid-19 miraculously disappears.  (Let me repeat:  over 50,000 new infections for the THIRD STRAIGHT DAY IN A ROW in the United States.)

Until that time of miraculous healing, if you see me on the street, I will be wearing a mask.  If you run into me at a store, I will greet you from a six-foot distance.  And I will pray for all of you, laugh with all of you, and hope with all of you.

And for that miracle of hope for togetherness, Saint Marty gives thanks.

poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

Who said the worst was past, who knew
such a thing?  Someone writing history,
someone looking down on us
from the clouds.  Down here, snow and wind:
cold blew through the clapboards,
our spring was frozen in the frozen ground.
Like the beasts in their holes,
no one stirred--if not sick
exhausted or afraid.  In the village,
the doctor's own wife died in the night
of the nineteenth, 1919.
But it was true:  at the window,
every afternoon, toward the horizon,
a little more light before the darkness fell.

May 4: Out of the Woods, Spring Rituals, Owning Up

Coming out of the woods, I heard loud shots; they reverberated ominously in the damp air.  But when I walked up the road, I saw what it was, and the dread quality of the whole afternoon vanished at once.  It was a couple of garbage trucks, huge trash compacters humped like armadillos, and they were making their engines backfire to impress my neighbors' pretty daughters, high school girls who had just been let off the school bus.  The long-haired girls strayed into giggling clumps at the corner of the road; the garbage trucks sped away gloriously, as if they had been the Tarleton twins on thoroughbreds cantering away from the gates of Tara.  In the distance a white vapor was rising from the waters of Carvin's Cove and catching in trailing tufts in the mountain's sides.  I stood on my own porch, exhilarated, unwilling to go indoors.

It is springtime at Tinker Creek.  Dillard comes upon this little spectacle as she emerges from the forest after a hike.  Everything is greening up, becoming lush and fecund.  The sap is flowing.  The garbage guys are showing off for these teenage girls.  Sort of like a peacock spreading its feathers or a silverback gorilla pounding its chest.  It's a way to draw attention, display masculinity.  It's a spring thing, I think, built into male DNA.  And Dillard finds this spring ritual exhilarating.

I participated in a couple spring rituals this evening.  First, I went to my office at the university and cleaned up my desk from an entire academic year's worth of clutter.  Piles of papers and books.  Empty Diet Coke cans.  I indexed and filed my classroom materials into 3-ring binders.  And I threw out a lot of stuff.

Second, I went Mother's Day shopping with my daughter.  We had exactly one hour to make our purchases.  We went to Walmart.  We crossed the highway to Target.  Success.  Not only did we find cards and presents, but also found a really cool Star Wars shirt for my daughter.  And we got some popcorn, too.

Third, I made some amends this evening.  I sent an e-mail to a colleague/friend.  For most of the school year, I neglected to fulfill some promises I had made.  It has been weighing on my mind a lot.  So, tonight, I apologized to my friend.  I hope that my e-mail is received with the spirit in which it was sent:  sincerity and goodwill.  It is always good to own up to the mistakes you make, I think.  It's good for the soul.  Keeps you grounded and honest.

Spring rituals.  Some of them are cleansing; some, a little painful.  It's all about rebirth and growth.  Letting go and owning up.

Saint Marty did a little of all of that tonight.

By the way--Happy Star Wars Day!