When you hear it said
that the approaching
“mega El Niño”
may well be similar
to the devastating El Niño
of 1877,
you should know
that we are ready,
yes, at this point, you should know
that we are very ready,
yes, we are ready to ignore
mass death and suffering.
According to recent reports
“Oysters, clams
from certain Washington
harvest areas
recalled because of norovirus,”
which is a reminder,
which is yet another reminder,
that this
is not an era of plague,
but an era of plagues.
I saw a headline
which alarmingly noted:
“Urgent warning
of long Covid symptoms
as number of cases
rise in UK,”
but here, across the pond,
things are quite different,
yes, here we know
that the way to avoid
a rising number of cases
is to just stop counting them.
At the meeting he apologized
for having forgotten my name
but he noted that he knew
we had met before,
because he remembered
that I still wear a mask,
and though I wanted to say
that I was pleased to hear
I had made a good impression,
instead: I just told him my name.
People keep telling me
they are worried
that during
the pandemic
far too many people
lost it.
And
I keep telling people
I am worried
that during
this ongoing pandemic
far too many people
caught it.
Recent analysis finds:
“the number
of competitive grants
awarded by
the National Institutes of Health
is down by more than half
compared with
the same period last year,”
and though it’s true
that funding NIH grants
is expensive,
not funding them
will cost us even more
According to the data
we are currently seeing
the lowest level
of daily COVID infections
that we have seen in years:
217,000 new daily infections,
and though I know
this is good news,
I can’t help but feel that
217,00 new daily infections
is still very bad news.
As we discussed the news
my work friend asked
if I ever feel like we
are all just stuck
in an episode
of the Twilight Zone,
but I replied that no,
I do not ever feel that way,
for I know
that Twilight Zone episodes
do not last this long.
Listen:
if you keep trying,
one of these weeks
you’ll find the right words,
you’ll find the right deeds,
to convince people
that they need
to take care of each other.
It might even be next week,
if you keep trying,
so keep trying,
please, my friend, keep trying.
When I hear my students
refer to the 1990s
as “the late 1900s,”
I sigh and think to myself:
“it doesn’t feel like that
was so long ago.”
And
when I hear my students
refer to 2019
as when the pandemic began
I sigh and think to myself:
“it feels like that
was so long ago.”
