This  Poem was brought t my attention by Denise Provost who found it on

Literary Hub 

“March the Ninth,” a Poem by Mariangela Gualtieri, trans. by Lucy Rand and Clarissa Botsford.

I'm telling you this

we needed to stop.

We knew. We all felt it

that it was too furious,

our frenzy. Being inside of things.

Outside of ourselves.

Squeeze every hour – make it yield. Newton

We needed to stop

and we couldn't. 

We needed to do it together.

Slow down the race.

But we couldn't.

There was no human force

that could hold us back.

And since this new 

was for all of us a tacit wish

like an unconscious will –

perhaps our species has obeyed

loosen the bonds that protect

our seed. Opened

the innermost cracks

and let it in.

Perhaps this is why there was a leap

in the species – from the bat to us.

Something in us wanted to be opened. 

Perhaps, I don't know.

Now we are at home.

It is extraordinary what is happening.

And there is gold, I believe, in this strange time.

Perhaps there are gifts.

Nuggets of gold for us. If we help one another.

There is a very strong call

of the species now and as a species

we must each see ourselves. A common fate

holds us here. We knew it. But not well enough.

Either all of us, or no one.

The earth is powerful. Truly alive

I feel it thinking a thought

that we do not know.

And with what's happening now? Let us consider

whether the earth is not what's moving.

Whether the law that rules

the entire universe, whether what's happening, I wonder, 

isn't the full expression of that law

that governs us to – just like

every star – every particle of the cosmos.

Whether the dark matter was this

being bound together in an ardor

for life, with the sweep of death that comes 

to rebalance every species.

Keep it within its dimensions, in its place,

going in the right direction. It is not us

who made heaven. 

An imposing voice, without words

tells us to stay home now, like children

who are in trouble and don't know why,

and won't get kisses, won't get hugged.

Each within a suspension

that takes us back, perhaps to the slowness

of ancient ancestors, of mothers.

Look more at the sky,

daub a dead man ocher. Bake bread

for the first time. Look intently at a face. Sing

a child softly to sleep. For the first time

hold someone else's hand tight

feel the strength of the agreement. That we are together.

A single organism. The whole species

we carry within us. We are saving it inside us.

To that grasp of a palm

in another person’s palm 

to that simple act that we are now forbidden –

we will return with expanded awareness.

We'll be here, more attentive, I think. Our hand

will be more delicate in the doing of life.

Now that we know how sad it is 

to stand one meter apart.