Ode to the Unbroken Spirit

Next up - a poem on Covid in the style of Walt Whitman.

[~]

Ode to the Unbroken Spirit

O human spirit, resilient and wide,
Emerging from the shadowed halls,
The great cities, the quiet towns,
Where once the streets lay still, silent as the early dawn—
I sing of you, vast and unyielding, rising like the sun,
Beyond the masks and murmurs, beyond the parted crowds,
In the heart of each, a drumbeat, a song,
A knowing that we are bound together,
Threads of a grand, endless fabric.

O nurses, doctors, healers with weary eyes yet steadfast hands,
I see you, bending not to fear,
But to the call of the bedside and the cry of the needy—
You are the arms that hold the world,
The fierce and gentle guardians of hope,
And I, one of many, salute you,
From my window, my porch, my heart,
O spirit that defies the stillness, the sickness, the night.

And you, the unseen, the silent,
Workers in the market and the fields,
Drivers, deliverers, keepers of light in the long, uncertain dark—
You march in the great procession of the living,
You hold aloft the lantern of continuity,
For you know, as the rivers know,
There is no end to the flow, only bends and pauses,
Only a change in the song's tempo,
The song that has been sung before, and will be sung again.

O children, eyes bright above the cloth that shields your breath,
You who have learned new ways to laugh,
New ways to reach across the space,
You are the unfurling of tomorrow’s flag,
The sapling that bends but does not break,
Your voices, still sweet and full of wonder, 
Carry the tune of tomorrow—
A tune of parks and playgrounds, of schools and summer days,
Of all the moments we hold sacred, soon to be ours again.

Come, O weary, O hopeful,
Rise from the ashes of the day that was,
And greet the dawn that must surely come,
For the air will clear, the fog will lift,
And we will gather again—
Not just in the places we knew, but in new places,
With new wisdom, new strength,
The quiet resilience of the seed that finds the light,
The unbroken circle of hands that join once more.

And so I sing, O world, O vast, unending multitude—
We are the tide that rises, the flame that does not dim,
We are the many, the one,
We are the voices that will not be silenced,
Singing out across the distance, across the night—
This is not an end, but a pause,
Not a silencing, but a breath—
And when we exhale, it is not with despair,
But with a new and radiant hope.
O human spirit, vast as the sky,
You endure, you heal, you rise.

[~]