The Coronavirus

‘All changed, changed utterly’ (W.B. Yeats)           

Walking the centre of my hometown of Boyle on St. Patrick's Day 2020, brought to mind the above famous quote from the poem Easter 1916; the message conveyed was more than appropriate. Shops closed, an overwhelming silence, no human in sight, streets like a morgue; Boyle was a dead man lying in repose.

Can anyone remember a St. Patrick's Day without Mass, a parade, music, banter, laughter? I have never known one like it in my memory and it stretches a long way to The Blizzard of 1947 and further. To think that a virus a thousand times more fragile than a rib of a human hair (we're told) can bring our powerful hi-tech world to a halt boggles the mind and humbles the spirit. The Masters of the Universe (no need to name them) look like a drowning man fighting for breath as they struggle to handle this mysterious little bug, that emerged one afternoon on the far side of the globe, that has our sophisticated world frightened out of its wits. Military might, nuclear power, embargos would have little effect on this new little creature. It obviously recognises no boundaries!

The great economies of the world are in a state of trauma not knowing what's around the corner; they could be the next bushfires of the world similar to what we have seen in Australia and the Amazon rainforests last year.  Twitter or Instagram would have little influence on the matter; they're lost for words!

My above little observations may ring a trifle satirical, with echoes of Gulliver's Travels or Alice in Wonderland, but seeing is believing. And it is there for all to see.

Today, with oceans of time on our hands to ponder and to think, it makes one wonder what strange anomaly of nature produced this deadly little virus in the first place. Apparently one afternoon last December, Mother Nature sneezed in a corner of a market place on the far side of the globe triggering a chain reaction that has reverberated around the world. Our beautiful open-air environment has suddenly become a dangerous place to inhabit. We are advised to stay at home (indoors). We must not socialise, and, if we do, keep a healthy distance. We must not shake hands or extend a hug of friendship; all changed, changed utterly, a (terrible) new way of life is born. A timeless and unique balancing act between Mother Nature and ‘Homo Sapiens’ was about to change. Coronavirus had arrived on earth.

Do we humans really value anything until it’s lost or taken from us? Freedom, the pleasure of company, a jog in the park, a walk by the lakeshore, a walk barefoot on the sands of an ebbed sea, the miracle of sunrise and sunset, relaxing in your own back garden! All these freedoms (taken for granted) are today being rationed out to us like foodstuff was during the war years (which I remember as a child); all because of Coronavirus. Without being facetious, could this whole scenario be an indicator of sorts to our present-day 'Masters of the Universe' to stop destroying all that's good and beautiful in nature? Wealth and power appear to be their one and only aim in life!

To conclude my little thesis, I truly believe Mother Nature is a reflection of God in action; no more, no less. If we appreciate Nature, her goodness, her beauty, her wildness, her hedges, and her ditches, we appreciate God. Perhaps a humble little prayer to our Creator to bring this lockdown of humanity and its accompanying nightmare to a conclusion wouldn't go astray!

                                     

Christy Wynne