One Step Backward Taken

In the midst of this global pandemic, we are being asked to...pause, to simply...stop (not so simple to do), or, as Robert Frost so eloquently expresses in his poem, step backward.  

Not only sands and gravels
Were once more on their travels,
But gulping muddy gallons,
Great boulders off their balance
Bumped heads together dully
And started down the gully.
Whole capes caked off in slices,
I felt my standpoint shaken in the universal crisis.

But with one step backward taken
I saved myself from going.
A world torn loose went by me,
Then the rain stopped and the blowing,
And the sun came out to dry me.

I think of my piano piece "Rapids" as a soundtrack for his "universal crisis" and "How the Sun Rose" as an underscore for the aftermath.

My favorite line from John Donne's "No Man is an Island" is "For I am involved in mankind."  Let's step back for a while, acknowledge and celebrate our common humanity, and know that the storm will stop, and the sun will come out to dry us...together.

 

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