This year was dominated by the coronavirus, specifically, a mutant called Covid-19. It started out at a wet-market and then expanded across China, afflicting everywhere it touched. Before we knew it, the disease spread through the entire world, leading to lockdowns and delayed events and questions about how to approach it and why we got here in the first place.
I didn’t think about how bad it was until a cluster occurred in a nursing home in the Seattle area, and then I had to wear a mask during a hospital visit because I coughed a bit. On an early Friday morning in March, I hurried to the library to pick up some books to read because they were about to be closed, preceding a state-wide stay-at-home order which was meant to contain it. It was the first time that I personally noted that it could become serious and hit us at home.
Fortunately, I haven’t been impacted that much because of the pandemic. There have been a few changes on job situations within the house and the need to stay around rather than go out, but we haven’t been infected yet. My father always has a number of masks in his car, just in case we have to run an errand or two.
And throughout this year, conflict still emerges on causes, remedies, and how different people are handling the crisis. From racism against Asian people to how mistreatment of the environment helped trigger the crisis, a maelstrom of different political causes are mixed together in terms of what the future would be like. One thing that stood out for me are how Chinese-American relations are deteriorating further, because of mutual conspiracies against the other about how COVID-19 originated, along with whom had the better response. Hopefully I could write some policy about how to resolve the boiling tensions between the two.
Until then, I want to share a poem from February by Shan Hong (山鸿）, which I read on WeiXin (or Wechat). I was inspired by this to write one of my own, but with a different focus. I also began to translate it, but I stopped and recently just found it again. Now I want to finish it, as a second wave hit the United States and it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up any soon.
祈祷：
今天新增的发病人数会少一些
感染者再少一些
祈祷：
天不要下雨，最好出个大太阳
把空气里的病毒杀一杀
祈祷：
走出医院和隔离区的再多一些
其他的好消息、哪怕是虚假的好消息
也再多一些
祈祷：
医生能拿出更多的试纸
把所有应该确诊的患者都确诊了吧
祈祷：
医院里还有一张床
把社区里挣扎在死亡线上的重病者
再收进去一个吧
祈祷：
今天发到病员手上的药物
除了两粒奥司他韦，还有
昨日那些好消息里说到的新药
祈祷：
那个就要死的父亲，他是别人的父亲
年龄和我差不多，在死之前
喝上了他想喝的那一口热粥
祈祷：
那个刚死的人衣衫不整头发凌乱
请让他同样已被感染的儿子
给他简单整理一下
祈祷：
那个刚才装进殓尸袋抬上殡仪车的人
能够释然他在这个世上活了几十年
临走的时候，只有她女儿一个人
在夜幕下的医院门口
望着他去的方向喊了几声“爸爸”
祈祷：
今天将要死去的人会少一些
火葬场的殡仪工能得到短暂的时间
安慰一下自己
祈祷：
那个给骨灰盒贴名签的人
不要把他们的名字贴错了
他们幸存的亲人
往后，会来火葬场寻找他们
2020.2.3
Prayer:
I pray that:
today, the number of new cases will fall a bit,
and those infected also.
I pray that:
it will not rain; it’s best that the sun comes out
and kills the virus in the air.
I pray that:
More people would leave the hospital and isolation zones;
and other good news, even if they are fake.
I pray that:
doctors can give out more more tests
to all the sufferers that need to be diagnosed.
I pray that:
the hospital would still have a bed,
so that the serious patients struggling on the line of death in society
can come in again.
I pray that:
the medicine in a patient’s hand is
other than the two doses of Oseltamivir,
is also the medicine in yesterday’s good news.
I pray that:
the father who is about to die, the other one
who’s close in age to me, can drink a cup of his coffee
and drink a spoonful of porridge before his death.
I pray that:
the clothing of a person who’s just died is not completely messed with hair–
please let his similarly-infected child sort things out.
I pray that:
the person who just lifted the corpse bag into the hearse,
can feel relieved about living another few decades;
before leaving, only his daughter
stands at the darkening hospital door,
hoping to hear “baba” in the direction he is going.
I pray that:
today’s dead will go down,
and that the undertakers at the crematorium could receive
a temporary respite to comfort themselves.
I pray that:
the people who stick on name tags to coffins
don’t stick the wrong one–
their beloved relatives
will come to the crematorium to find them
from now on.
