“My heart is a gypsy
a free bird flying in the wind
a mermaid diving into the sea waves…”
“Someday you will remember
The long line of migrant laborers
Who cleaned your city,
Built your buildings…”
“I will take off the clothes of reality
I shall put on the garment of truth
And after diving into the depths of the sea
In the waves I shall seek oblivion…”
“I’m waiting for you…
the clocks broke tonight…
I’m waiting for you…
and I paint hope…”
“A virus inhabits the gray zone between the animate
and inanimate, spreads unseen from touch, breath,
the very qualities that make us human…”
“Due to Covid-19, I have been in strict quarantine due to the fact that I live with my grandmother…Academically, this has also affected my ability to take the SAT and ACT, which is something I felt disappointed about because I spent so much time studying for them.”
“I don’t experience sufferings as most people do.
I’m aware it exists.
I used to feel bad that I’m not experiencing grief and pain like the majority of the population.
Yes, it can feel real.”
“There’s a virus in the air, but I can’t see it.
People are dying around me, but I can’t save them.
There are spikes pierced in my back,
spasms, but I can’t touch them.”
“We sat together in couples
patting each other’s shoulders as we passed,
leaned across the table listening, looking carefully,
taking each other in. Your absence is breaking me.
The descending darkness brings home the loss
of all your warm and present bodies, all your arms
that held me in the doorway and all the little ones
we carried to their beds. “
“She moved back to San Francisco because she missed the fog and the cable cars and the other poets. In the 1970s she found it easier (and less expensive) to write rather than paint.”
Life in Quarantine: Witnessing Global Pandemic is an initiative sponsored by the Poetic Media Lab and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford University.
Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA),
Stanford University
Address:
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450 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305
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