Living with the Coronavirus Curve
In an era of the curve, a measurement for the overwhelming number of deaths caused by a rogue virus, it seems appropriate to discuss why poets write about death, grief, and loss, and why readers are drawn to these themes. We all know that there is just a wisp of air between life and death. We also know that no one is immortal, and, although we strive for immortality through our descendants, our works, and the mark we leave on this world, the fact is, “To be alive is to die.”
So there it is; the idea of our own mortality. The problem for me is not the idea of my own mortality; it is the idea of losing someone I deeply love. The first time I wrote about death was in the days, weeks, months, and years following my mother’s sudden death in 1976. Both of my books, A Consecration of the Wind, and Fragmented Roots, include poems about that trauma, which I have relived at various stages of grief for 44 years.
The above quote and the following lines are from the poem, “Survivor,” which I wrote in the days following my mother’s death.
I have a vision of hugging
And kissing my mother.
I have a dream
That this is a dream.
Disbelief is what I felt then, and disbelief was what I felt in “1966, “When a generation died,” and in 2016 “When 3 ravaged bodies/Pressed on the glass/And went through to the other side.”
I dread loss and death because I grieve too deeply. I don’t think it is the poet in me that makes me so sensitive and empathetic. I think I inherited those traits from my mother, so each time a friend or relative dies, I feel the loss very deeply. Some could argue that my intense grief is a selfish emotion because it represents my fear that I will be one of the next ones to cross over. I don’t believe that notion, though. I just believe that the fragility of life overwhelms me, and I miss my beloved friends who are no longer here.
The last poem in the section “Faces Past and Present” in Fragmented Roots ends with the following lines, summing up the resignation that surrounds the certainty of death for everyone who, at this moment, is alive.
The rank and file exit
As fading lights dot the black water.
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