The Pandemicists’ Poem

by John O’Donoghue (1956-2008)

This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.

And People Stayed Home

by Kathleen O’Meara  written in 1869 – (20 years after the famine.)

And people stayed home
and read books and listened
and rested and exercised
and made art and played
and learned new ways of being
and stopped
and listened deeper
someone meditated
someone prayed
someone danced
someone met their shadow
and people began to think differently
and people healed
and in the absence of people who lived in ignorant ways, dangerous,
meaningless and heartless, even the earth began to heal and when the danger
ended and people found each other grieved for the dead people and they made
new choices and dreamed of new visions and created new ways of life and
healed the earth completely just as they were healed themselves.