Poetry for a Pandemic with Rebecca Elson

On April 25th, 2020 Maria Popova hosted the 4th annual Universe in Verse gathering. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this event took place virtually and included artists and poets from across the globe. The event honored astronomer and poet Rebecca Elson, and featured the following poem.

Rebecca died at age thirty-nine from non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Take a few moments to slowly read Rebecca’s reflection on death.

Antidotes to Fear of Death by Rebecca Elson

Sometimes as an antidote
To fear of death,
I eat the stars.

Those nights, lying on my back,
I suck them from the quenching dark
Til they are all, all inside me,
Pepper hot and sharp.

Sometimes, instead, I stir myself
Into a universe still young,
Still warm as blood:

No outer space, just space,
The light of all the not yet stars
Drifting like a bright mist,
And all of us, and everything
Already there
But unconstrained by form.

And sometime it’s enough
To lie down here on earth
Beside our long ancestral bones:

To walk across the cobble fields
Of our discarded skulls,
Each like a treasure, like a chrysalis,
Thinking: whatever left these husks
Flew off on bright wings.

For reflection:

Has there been a time when you have felt the reality of your mortality?

What do you notice about yourself when thoughts of your mortality arise? What happens in your body? What emotions accompany your thoughts? What happens next?