April 10: A Long Walk, Some Kind of Loss, From "Kyrie"

Took my dog for a long walk this afternoon.  It was cold, and, of course, we encountered barely anyone.  Just a few lonely people longing to escape the four walls of their home for a few minutes.

As we walked, I looked at the houses we passed, thought of the people inside.  Statistically, nobody is going to escape the touch of this virus.  It will enter everyone's lives through some kind of loss.  A parent or grandparent.  A friend.  A car.  A home.  A job.

During the Great Depression, the jobless rate, at its peak, was 25%.  One in four people were out of work.  Economists are predicting an unemployment number that could actually equal that number.  Like I said, nobody is going to be left untouched by this mess.

I joked with a coworker yesterday that we're all going to come out of isolation 25 pounds heavier and alcoholics.  She didn't disagree.

Saint Marty just had a mug of special hot chocolate.  Now, he's eyeing up the Cheetos.

from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

My brothers had it, my sister, parceled out
among the relatives.  I had it exiled
in the attic room.  Each afternoon
Grandfather came to the top stair, said
"How's my chickadee," and left me sweet
cream still in the crank.  I couldn't eat it
but I hugged the sweaty bucket, I put
the chilled metal paddle against my tongue.
I swam in the quarry, into a nest of ropes,
they wrapped my chest, they kissed the soles of my feet
but not with kisses.  Another time:  a man
stooped in the open door with her packed valise,
my mother smoothing on eight-button gloves,
handing me a tooth, a sprig of rue--