I don’t want to write about the pandemic
But how it took my voice away
Which is a hard thing to do
Because to write I need my voice
All I can do is use the voice I have
To write about
How and when I lost it
It happened about 4 weeks ago
I was staying home like a good citizen
We had most of what we needed here
My wife was going out once a week
To take care of some essential work
I was minding my own business
Catching up on some reading
Walking eating better than normal
Reading the news
Trying to avoid rabbit holes
Minding my health (being 69)
Staying in touch with my son
Paying attention to my dreams
Which is part of my practice
I even pulled out a borrowed book
Yoga over 50 and started
Practicing every day
But gradually I started noticing that I was really sad
Oh there was plenty to be upset about
I won’t bore you with the list
Though I am tempted to do just that
But it would just serve as a distraction
From what I want this Epistle to be about
How I lost my voice
What do I mean by “my voice”?
I’m not a singer
I’m a poet and author
I write poems and books
My voice is my message
Marshall McLuhan alerted the listening world (1964)
To how the Medium is the Message
I never really understood that
And I believe I was in a majority
Because his message
Was completely lost in the medium
Appropriated by the best-seller mentality
Of the book publishers and journalism
Push what sells
Don’t worry about the message
Sound familiar?
No one is responsible for the message
If it sells print it back it
Post it push it
But what concerns me now (I think)
Is that there is a message
Trying to come through
That is not being carried by any medium
Can you blame us?
Take me
I was full of message
Until about a month ago
What happened?
The message got way too big for the medium
The world needs help
The world needs to change
So badly but
All of a sudden?
No
It has been needing to change all along
But governments were hung up on the medium
And the message wasn’t getting through
Greta was trying to alert us to this
Her message was shame shame shame
Her message was
You messed up you grown-ups
Her message was all in her expression
If you want the planet to die
You couldn’t be doing a better job
So nobody wanted to hear that
They wanted to get back to
Losing the message in the medium
Show us a movie about Greta
Sell us her story so we can go to sleep again
Just don’t give us that Greta-look
That message without a medium
But back to how I lost my voice
I’ll tell it in a story
I woke up one morning
And I saw that the world had a broken wing
I always knew it was fragile
I just didn’t know it was that fragile
All it took was a new strain of flu
To break the wing of the world
And then my voice went into hiding
I’ve been looking for it ever since
Maybe this is our Silent Spring
Has anyone else lost their voice out there?
Waiting for the day to dawn
When the message is the medium?
— Gary Lindorff
Epidemic Epistle III: It’s Spring and I’ve Turned 71 in a Pandemic-Induced Recession
Epidemic Epistle II: Wading through – It’s all poetry, bad poetry