By Dr. Sophia Edwards-Bennett

 

In the backdrop of such devastatingly ominous times

Fraught with fierce onslaught and incomprehensible loss of lives 

Stand our courageous soldiers in health care, battling on the front lines

While others bravely serve from the corridors of business, and from our store aisles 

 

In the shadow of vulnerability 

Confronted by our inevitable mortality

Comes the epiphany of life’s ephemerality 

Stripped of our feigned distractions 

Sequestered in our inertial state 

In reverent introspection 

Contemplating our fate  

 

Then, piercing through the four seasons of silence

The painful wailing of injustices roared

Its stentorian utterance we could not ignore 

Echoing across borders, transcending oceans and barren lands

In restless streets, loved ones weep, while protestors band

In the name of ‘Good Trouble’, though met with discord 

The March moves on…..in one accord

Weaponizing the shared hopes and dreams 

Of our ancestral souls 

Seeking to pulverize the resistance of the impenetrably bold 

 

 

The Webster Merriam defines the word ‘vessel’ as: 

 

a container for holding something 

                         OR

a person into whom some quality is infused 

 

We are all vessels …..

 

We all carry within us, a better version of ourselves

We harbor within us:

The compassion we feel

Not the indifference portrayed

The peace we bring, to turmoil rescind 

 

My view from the frontlines 

Where for my patients I stand

Is the axiomatic truth:

That every life is precious

Deserving of every morsel of my knowledge, expertise, and energy expended 

That every life matters, equally 

Without question or equivocation 

 

This ascension in cognition 

Transcends creed, color, class or culture

It frees our minds from the shackles of stubborn indifferences 

It pervades our consciousness 

And convicts our souls 

To embrace empathy and inclusivity

And subscribe to the power of unity

 

So….

If we can collectively atone 

 And redeem our humanity

Then, engraved in our memory 

Stenciled boldly in our history 

Will be the Edict of Revelation

That the year of Pandemic Inspiration 

Was, in Hindsight —2020