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
