If you have been active on social media recently, you might have come across a poem starting with the words, “And the People Stayed Home.” We did a little digging, and found that the prose poem is a creation of Kitty O’Meara. Here’s an insight of the same. By Kumar Shree
Before we tell you more about Kitty O’Meara’s creation and what compelled her to write this prose, we urge you to read the poem once as it will help you understand it better.
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And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.
Some met their shadows.
And the people began to think differently.
And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.
And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.
The poem is a work of one sitting and offers an account of how it could be, and what could be done with this time on our hands. The prose was written as an outlet for O’Meara’s built-up anxiety brewing for months as she watched the news of the pandemic taking over the world. “I was anxious for the past few months. I knew this was coming, and I couldn’t be of service,” she adds while talking to OprahMag.com.
Ever since she penned the poem, everyone has been sharing and re-sharing it. People have also been re-sharing the poem in the form of video posts, pictures, and even YouTube videos.