This Virus is Not the Enemy – A Poem for Precarious Times

THIS VIRUS IS NOT THE ENEMY

She told me to Move In. That people are
hard to hate
close up.

But,
anything closer than six feet,
they say,
isn’t’ safe
— as if safe were even a possibility…

She told me to hold hands with strangers.
But, strangers are now forbidden.
My eyes reach across the divide,
two homeless waifs seeking the connection my skin is denied.

It has been 16 days now.
My body is weeping out
Gravity – dry and heavy,
the weight of this isolation draws me
down,
down,
down
I am surrendered
back to the primoradial from which I came.

But here,
they who are not they, meet me.
We are back in the raw ingredients where
the distinction between you and I
no longer applies.

This virus is not the enemy.
It is the brazen Bitch calling Bullshit.
It is the Maya Angelou in her unflinching gaze saying
“I see you.”
It is Greta Thunberg speaking without smiling
to soften truth’s impact.
It is Jesus turning over tables,
It is Kali ripping hearts wide open.

It is Life Itself,
threshing
shucking the husks
Grinding us from hard,
to coarse,
to fine.

We have been
Too Big to travel through the eye of the needle,
Too swollen
to be useful.

This virus is not the enemy.
The longing of my skin is not the adversary.
It is the calling us home.

When the soft quiet voice cannot be heard
Life will make its stand.
It will roar the raging fires.
From its bowels, it will thrash the tsunami.
And when,
even then
we do not hear,
It sweeps the entire planet with a silence so deafening
We must all

Stop.

 

Let us not squander this hour of our pain.