Check out Elephant’s Continually-updating Coronavirus Diary. ~ Waylon

~

The Great Pause came and the question arose:

How will we make it out
alive?

And the answer we received was this:
we separate.

Alone together,
we worried through numbers and fretted
through tasks. We hoarded thinking of “I”
and we scurried while standing in place.

Strangers and friends alike became carriers
of a lurking foe, so we averted our eyes
and we breathed in halted gasps
through masks that made us all
the hooded robber.

But no matter how we tried to outrun it all,
the mighty gears had halted
long enough to allow
old dust to settle, revealing
new truth.

In it, we realized our initial answer
had been all wrong
and the question itself,
flawed.

As clear as the newfound horizon
free from muddling smog, we eventually saw
the very thing we forever try not to see.
For some it came swiftly, while others grappled
longer, trying to hold it at bay. But eventually
we all remembered that we won’t
—none of us, really—
make it out alive.

It shocked us to remember
all together
at once
and the Grief was greater than the Pause
could ever be.

We realized the question wasn’t one of
survival,
but instead was one of choice
between the frenzy of fear
or calm acceptance
to an end.

With nowhere to go, we were forced to face that Fear
as warriors on the yoga mat breathing deeply,
as we flipped through photo albums
and so many pages of our pasts,
as we curled up in bed with tears
damp on our cheeks, as we stared up
at pointed lights in the night sky…

And we asked ourselves
if we could live while knowing we will die;
if we could live while letting so much go;
if we could live in this moment,
and this moment,
and now this one,
all within uncertainty of the next.

We locked into that mirrored gaze
and shattered the brilliant pieces of ourselves.
We groped in darkness, tenderly gathering
all of those sharp edges
alone together
and began to reunite them again
one day, one moment,
one breath at a time.

~
Continue reading: 

Depression in Quarantine.

The Metta of Mask-Wearing.