Goodbye
Mourning Those Taken by Covid
My parents and grandparents died of ordinary agonies.
We sang to them and held their hands.
No careworn angel grasped a smartphone in which our tiny images
And distant voices said goodbye.
I suck at goodbyes.
Even ending a phone call can leave me awkward and breathless—
And now each of us must add our distinct voice:
Goodbye, known and unknown kinfolk and lovers!
And to those of you grieving your loved ones, we mourn with you,
Each of us holds a sliver of your crushing loss.
If we turn away from your pain, we diminish ourselves.
In my entire career, said an emergency room doctor,
I’ve never sent so many people home in body bags. These are our beloved dead,
Many of them were nurses, doctors, caregivers, meat packers,
Delivery people, first responders, farmworkers….
Who risked death to save us and keep us safe. 20% were elders.
Native Americans lost 256 souls for every 100,000 tribe members.
Were these deaths in vain? Will they be remembered?
If we turn away in silence, we diminish one another.
Reed and I visited a hillside cemetery
Where plaques mark the ashes of my parents and grandparents,
Their plot was quiet,
While on the next slope of graves,
New oceans of mourners flooded the sod with flowers
Some brought folding chairs and picnicked while their children played
Others, all in black, mumbled along with a shawled minister
Bowing their masked faces.
Drilling disbelieving eyes into disturbed earth.
These were the lucky ones who found a way to mourn.
One friend had to say his goodbyes while housebound in isolation.
Another felt her only course was to pave over sadness, rage, terror,
With casseroles, binge-watching, and pills.
Goodbye, Kinfolk, friends, Lovers!
“THERE’S NO JUSTICE,” said Terry Pratchett’s character, DEATH,
“JUST US.”
The angels of just us aren’t interested in vengeance,
They live in a vast temple where all of our hearts gather.
Blind to the surface, their winged bodies plunge like raptors
Into the core of each of us,
Their sharp beaks devour our empty passivity;
That’s how they save us from shrinking into pawns of our worst impulses.
In the center of our temple,
They lit a candle for each of over 2.65 million
Who died of Covid on earth so far.
Our tears magnify the blaze,
Then we discern these millions are only a glimmer
In a wildfire of suffering.
The dead open our eyes so wide we can never go back to squinting
Gone are the narrow slits where light struggled to enter, and now,
Radiance drenches us.
We are the beloved living,
Sinking our roots deep beneath the adoring grass.
We must hold on a while longer,
Wearing our masks,
Keeping distances that belie our yearnings
We need to beat this thing for those who didn’t make it,
And those precious beings dying even now.
The vaccine didn’t reach them in time,
But you and I can receive a shot of immunity in their name,
Protecting ourselves and everyone.
We can diminish this disease that prospered through denial.
We can be better prepared next time.
We are the ones who can breathe
When breath was taken from so many,
By disease, by institutionalized injustice,
Let’s not wait for death to unify us.
May the waters of life fall from the sky with mercy
Cleansing not drowning us.
May the bereaved earth and the choking air forgive us.
May we labor to be worthy, in our own eyes,
Of our place in the earth and cosmos.
No matter what comes, may we weave strange beauty
Out of living and dying.
Three of us, then four, ten, ten million
This is no march in formation,
It’s a traveling dance—
Goodbye, Kinfolk, friends, lovers, goodbye!
Let us love the living and bless the dead.
Those of us whose blood still flows have the honor of saying goodbye,
We have the chance to breakthrough for us all.
