BY CLAUDE SOLNIK | An emergency room doctor recently talked about “scrubbing the coronavirus off my body, if not my soul.”
While journalism documents events, in a time of crisis, language can do more than just document and describe — it can capture what’s going on with emotion. It can help “scrub” the soul, if not keep us safe.
With that in mind, in addition to conventional coverage, we’ll be bringing you verbal snapshots, an effort to use language to score small victories and document events, a different kind of coverage of this crisis from the heroism to the heartbreak.
We will seek to use words to chronicle the coronavirus crisis, what’s happening in the soul as well as society, to scrub our souls and feed our hearts, honor our heroes and record what’s been happening.
First Masks
I remember the first ones now,
How strange these medical
Masks looked on a sunny day,
Blooming like white, blue and
Pink flowers in the city, a few
Faces wearing this new wardrobe,
As if they were aware there was
Something in the air, as if
Someone had poisoned the atmosphere
While I paid very little attention,
Not realizing these were the
First signs of a wildfire that had
Already begun to spread across
Another part of the globe far away
Within the same forest.
Shopping Safari
Shopping has become a safari
as I go strolling down the aisle
Aware of any ambush that
Could be set, hidden on
A shopping cart handle or
Among a bag of groceries,
Offended when a man nonchalantly
Brushes against my shoulder
Near people wearing masks
Once reserved for medicine,
A strange universe of the unknown
As I navigate the supermarket
Which has become a wilderness.
Statue of Liberty’s Lesson
in Social Distancing
We’re all talking about social distancing
As if it’s a contradiction in terms and
It is, of course, since closeness is
About touch and feel and yet
True proximity is much deeper
Than skin against skin, a
Spiritual connection that can
Bring us closer amid calamity,
That can unite us even more
As distance draws us apart,
Even as the Statue of Liberty
Stands solitary, also a symbol of
The solidarity that neither politics
Nor plague can ever destroy.
No More NBA for Now
When the NBA announced
It would stop playing,
Suddenly we all saw that
A basketball game is the
Workplace for the players
Who were starting to
Test positive for the virus,
Showing us that the game
Couldn’t just go on with
Crowds in the seats or empty
Arenas filled with ghosts and
Players passing around a virus
With no referee to call
A foul when infection moves
Even faster than a basketball.
All of a sudden a high five
Became a wrong turn and
The basketball went from
Being the rock that bounces
And flies into the hoop to
A way to spread infection
And remind us that when
The game is over, all the
Players are on the same team.
Hand Ballet
Horror brings out humor
And so a well-dressed man
In a tux washes his hands to music,
Moving both hands almost
Like a conductor or a magician,
Faster and slower to match
The notes as if he’s going to make
The disease disappear like a dove,
Keeping rhythm with the orchestra,
Hands moving in a choreography
As elaborate as Balanchine,
A beautiful set of dancing hands,
Ten fingers like five couples
Tangoing, waltzing, weaving in
And out of so many chords,
A reminder that washing hands
Has gone from an occasional
Motion to an elaborate ritual
And the front line of a battle
Where sanitizer and alcohol
Can put out fires that burn
Without flames but still
Engulf the gorgeous
Ember of the earth.
All poems by Claude Solnik.
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