Biblical-theological commission invites us to a spiritual conversation

Mariangela Gualtieri's poem "9 March 2020",
written in response to the shock of the pandemic,
has been translated into dozens of languages.

This is what I want to tell you
we had to stop.
We knew it. We all felt it.
that it was too furious
our doing. Being inside things.
All of us outside.
Shaking every hour - making it count.

We had to stop
and we couldn't.
It had to be done together.
Slowing down the race.
But we couldn't.
There was no human effort
that could hold us back.

And since this
was a common unspoken desire
like an unconscious will -
perhaps our species obeyed
unfastened the chains that keep
our seed. Opened
the most secret fissures
and let us in.
Maybe that's why there was a species jump afterwards -
of species - from the bat to us.
Something in us wanted to open wide.
Maybe, I don't know.

Now we are home.

It's amazing what's happening.
And there is gold, I think, in this strange time.
Maybe there are gifts.
Golden nuggets for us. If we help each other.
There is a very strong call
of the species now and as a species now
we must all think of ourselves. A common destiny
holds us here. We knew that. But not too well.
It's either all of us or none of us.

The earth is powerful. Really alive.
I feel it thinking a thought
that we do not know.
And what is happening? Let us consider
Whether it is not she who moves.
If the law that keeps the whole universe
the whole universe, if what is happening is not
is not the full expression of that law
that governs us too - just like
every star - every particle of the cosmos.

If dark matter were this
holding everything together in an ardour
of life, with the sweep of death that comes
to balance each species.
Holding it within its measure, in its place,
guided. It is not we
who made the sky.

An imposing voice, without words
tells us now to stay at home, like children
who have done it big, without knowing what,
and they won't get kisses, they won't get hugs.
Each one inside a brake
that takes us back, perhaps to the slowness
of ancient ancestors, of mothers.

To look more at the sky,
dyeing a dead man with ochre. Making for the first time
bread for the first time. Take a good look at a face. Sing
softly so that a child sleeps. For the first time
shake another hand with your hand
To feel a strong understanding. That we are together.
One organism. The whole species
we carry it within us. Inside us we save it.

In that grip
of a palm with someone's palm
to that simple act which is forbidden to us now -
we will return with a broadened understanding.
We will be here, more careful I think. More delicate
our hand will be inside the doing of life.
Now we know how sad it is
to be a metre apart.