A while ago now, the Fordham University Choir sang Eric Whitacre's "A Boy and a Girl" at Fordham's fall concert. The text is a translation of a poem by Octavio Paz, and the story in the poem ends with the titular lovers dead and buried together: "stretched out underground, a boy and a girl, saying nothing, never kissing, giving silence for silence." It's very beautiful and tremendously depressing. The mention of silence comes to mind at the moment because, in several ways, the advent of the Coronapocalypse has brought lots of things to a standstill. It feels absolutely bizarre, especially to someone who, like me, goes to school in NYC, the so-called "City that Never Sleeps." That's life, I guess; and, once all of this is over, it will be a very interesting memory.
The medieval Christmas carol "I Sing of a Maiden" makes a big fuss about quiet; so does, of course, "Silent Night." The other day I was in Greenwich Village and it took only a half-hour to get there by car from the Bronx. It was a beautiful day, but the city was empty. I even ate at a restaurant in Times Square, and it was dead quiet. Coronavirus has meant that my spring break service project, an English honor society conference I was going to attend, and most if not all of Fordham's spring semester choir performances have been canceled. For all I know, Fordham will have to cancel its Commencement ceremony as well. This is a very strange time; I didn't expect it at all when I started at Fordham as a freshman, as no one, of course, did, and I still can't quite wrap my head around it.
Lots of people in the world live with the constant threat that their lives will change drastically from one moment to the next. I have been very lucky; I've never been traumatized by the death of a family member or friend, I've never had my house been blown away into the ocean or burnt down or auctioned off, and I've never lain close to dying from some disease or accident. So far no one I'm close to has been harmed by the coronavirus, and I'm grateful for that. The weirdness that I'm feeling right now is a collective weirdness; relatively-speaking, I have nothing to complain about. I know that, certainly.
The feeling of all of this, though, is not irrelevant. And, whatever else comes of it, what marvelous material it will make for poetry, indeed.
