"Mourning Mourning" an original poem by thepoetmiranda
An original poem by thepoetmiranda
Intro
This poem about when we hit one million COVID deaths (May 2022) is one that’s been swimming in my psyche for nearly three years. Multiple times it’s popped up to the surface, and I’ve written down a couple lines. Then I let it go. With the current political situation and the callousness of my fellow Americans being so much on my mind lately, it’s been bobbing along those waves more frequently. Yesterday, I finally pulled all these notes in a bottle together and finished the poem.
My wife was almost an early casualty of this terrible disease. From late March until early May 2020—when we didn’t know how to fight it—I averaged 1-2 hours of sleep a night while I kept watch to make sure she was still breathing.
When one million COVID deaths was barely a blip in the news cycle, it confirmed what I already knew: we don’t mourn the dead in this country. I know that individuals were (sometimes) mourned by their family and friends, but we as a nation didn’t even offer a solemn moment for a million lost souls.
A lot of people would like the U.S. to be more “Christian,” and you know this trans woman takes issue with a lot things people mean when they say something like that, but I wholly support following Paul the Apostle’s admonition that we “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.” Acts of morning acknowledge our shared humanity and help us find closure.
Because the numbers are so similar, it’s easy for me to imagine another potential horror: If/When this government fulfills the Christian Nationalists’ perverse wet dream of getting rid of the 1-2 million of us who are transgender Americans, I don’t expect to be mourned, either.
The reason I finished writing this poem yesterday is that my Facebook birthday notifications included a friend who did die from COVID. I remember the day he died, and I remember the “remembrances” on his FB page that mixed requiescat in pace with “welp, he was overweight” and “poor guy had diabetes” and “still not taking the jab” and so on. It broke my heart then, and it breaks my heart now.
The poem text is below, followed by my video reading. My other original poems are here. Selected poetry readings from the public domain are here. And my trans woman mixtape memoir is here.
💜Miranda📚
Mourning Mourning
This morning, May 4, 2022, the NBC News website reads “Covid's toll in the U.S. reaches a once unfathomable number: 1 million deaths.” Unfathomable (adjective): a: immeasurable b: impossible to comprehend Talking heads stretch their grotesque hydra necks, turn to face the cameras, and call it comorbidities, a tragedy— a staged tragedy— culling the herd. The herd. Cattle. Chattel. Fathom dehumanization. Is there a refrigerated semi trailer still parked in the back alley? They crow on about bats, and wet markets, and labs, and jabs. Next month, new numbers, Fox News hopes GM’s quarterly results show us there’s still healthy demand for Cadillac hearses.
I can't even express how hard this poem hit me, Miranda. This is powerful, powerful prose. Especially as a nurse.
Heard and felt deeply. This money machine meat grinder of a country trumps all. We are all indeed just commodities, disposable and counted only to attract clicks. I can't imagine what that time was like for you and your wife in 2020. I've only had to watch over a child with RSV breathing jaggedly over a few nights. But weeks, months?