All The Clocks Have Stopped

     The pandemic has turned our lives upside down and left us not only endangered, not only afraid, but forced to face the fear and danger in isolation. We're lucky if there are two or three people we can turn to and touch in this time of crisis. Our gathering places stand empty -- as they should, since coming together in groups would only increase the number of people who find themselves sick and alone in a hospital bed, struggling for breath, forbidden to see the faces they most adore.

 

("Heartache in the Hot Zone," from the New York Times)

     The churches and synagogues are shuttered. We cannot congregate even to mark the passing of our loved ones. It's some comfort to know that this isolation will come to an end one day...but in the meantime we'll have to manage it however we can, with books or Netflix or virtual cocktail parties or poetry.
     Our colleague Sophia suggested this poem by W.H. Auden, "Funeral Blues." Many of us first encountered it in the movie clip seen below. Sooner or later we'll be able to meet at movie theaters again and talk about how we got through this.