And people stayed home
and read books and listened
and rested and exercised
and made art and played
and learned new ways of being
and were still
and listened more deeply
someone meditated
someone prayed
someone danced
someone met their own shadow
and people started thinking differently—
And people healed…
And in the absence of people who lived in ignorant ways
dangerous, mindless, and heartless…
The earth began to heal…
And when the danger ended
and people found themselves…
They grieved for the dead
and they made new choices
and dreamed of new visions
and created new ways to live
and heal the earth fully
just as they had been healed.
Kathleen O’Meara (1869) Irish Poet wrote this after a plague devastated Ireland in the late 1860’s