Wednesday, April 1, 2020

the assault of the other



distancing

I e mail a friend about how she is doing
in this time of Covid 19 and sheltering in place,
she’s feeling positive:
“It’s warm and we live in a low population density area.”

viruses, like ideas, particularly thrive in close quarters
where an insularity of self has to bump up
against others who are different,
and who can challenge the sureness of our easy ideas,
of our take on the universe,
of the integrity of our body,

now we are thrown back into family,
the closeness of partner, of our children,
of the rooms within which we live and know ourselves,
social distancing a rule of our existence outside the home,

I wonder about our politics where such distancing
denies us contact with the others’ ideas,

cities are of congregations,
where proximity to others
can force opinion, and immune system,
to deal, to grow up, to learn the other,
and change to meet the challenge,
to learn how to consider and deal with
ideas and assaults of virus, of bacteria, of thought,
that challenge how parochial we can be.


by Henry H. Walker
March 30, ‘20

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