Global Covid Deaths
March 2020: 5,785

It began like many tragedies,
with rumors and confusion.
Misinformation flourished,
but underneath the deceit ran a line of frightening truth:
people were dying, and no one knew how to stop the spread.

A plague like no other, assisted by our global connection. Highly contagious, it
swept through our elders first. And with terrifying speed: 4 days, 14 days, gone.
Soon there were not enough beds in the hospitals, not enough oxygen for struggling lungs.
Not enough room in the morgues. Air-conditioned containers,
full of bodies, appeared in incongruous locations.

Scientists were baffled.
Governments ineffectual.

We retreated to our homes.
Stunned, we waited:
for answers,
for insight,
for solutions.

On Easter Sunday the great tenor Andrea Bocelli sang his way through the empty streets of Rome.
Intended to be a gift of hope, it brought into our homes a sense of isolation and despair
we had desperately been trying to keep at bay.
And so, our wait continued:
days,
weeks,
months,
a year,
for our lives to resume, normal to return.

Amidst the covid chaos
wars erupted, wildfires raged,
social injustice thrived,
peaceful protest continued.

Everywhere we looked we saw jagged lines of inequality, broken hearts, and fear.
But from our ennui of despair, a collective thought occurred,
as if all the thoughts in isolation began to see that
hearts can heal, distant hands can touch.
Perhaps our slower lives were not the problem,
But the solution?

Sighing, we pulled back from the cliff
To begin the work of our new reality.

Global Covid Deaths
May 2021: 3, 432, 672
March 2023 6, 888, 540