Poem: In the Time of Pandemic

Photo by Steven H. Robinson

In the Time of Pandemic
By Catherine "Kitty" M. O’Meara


And the people stayed home.

And they read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.

And they listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed.

And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.

~~~~~

About the poem, Snopes.com says:

"O’Meara posted this poem to her blog The Daily Round on March 16, 2020. The poem went viral, racking up thousands of shares as it circulated on social media. On March 19, Oprah Magazine dubbed O’Meara, a former teacher in Madison, Wisconsin, the “poet laureate of the pandemic,” writing:

Kitty O’Meara is the poet laureate of the pandemic. Her untitled prose poem, which begins with the line, “And the people stayed home,” has been shared countless times, on countless backgrounds, with countless fonts, since its first posting. 

It was most widely popularized by Deepak Chopra, and has since been shared by everyone from Bella Hadid to radio stations in Australia. The poem has become shorthand for a silver-linings perspective during the coronavirus outbreak — the hope that something good can come out of this collective state of “together, apart.”