The Pandemic Project: Round Two
We proudly present the second installation of submissions to the Butler Bridge Program’s Pandemic Project. This ongoing project seeks to collect the writings of Indiana students affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. While some pieces may address the pandemic, this is not a prerequisite. Instead, this project celebrates the writing of young people living through unprecedented times, as they choose to celebrate, question, and confront them.
Submissions are ongoing; if you would like to be included in our next posting and are an Indiana student in grades 3-12, please send your submission, along with name, grade, and city, to egiffin@butler.edu.
Swarming Apprehension: For Coronavirus Victims, Patients, And Loved Ones: Part One
Bailey Shafer
First responders,
Clamorous sirens beckoning to countless populations around the globe…
We can glance out our windows,
But nothing beyond them remains truly tangible, to more than our eyes.
We feel no lasting comfort in the grass, into which our limbs try in vain to settle.
Vacant sidewalks,
Hollowed-out waiting rooms,
They no longer bring even the slightest surprise.
Beneath every face mask,
Confined within every heart and burdened mind,
An ongoing fear attacks what we hold most dear.
Swarming Apprehension: For Coronavirus Victims, Patients, And Loved Ones: Part Two
Bailey Shafer
There are certainties we’ve known, in a lifetime prior to this age of isolation,
This dirge that spills out in embittered words,
Frequently summoned to the surface by a now-common outrage,
One that binds people together like pages of the same story, lived today in fear…
But now, the cherished moments and consistencies have all but perished,
Meals are delivered to doorsteps, but are forbidden from being passed between hands.
Women and men are consumed,
Arriving conclusively, in these times,
At an ever-persisting need to dwell on their thoughts.
Hope has grown hardened into boulders, that skid down a mountainside,
Everyday optimism is a sacred staple, increasingly-sought for,
Only to greet its customers with numbingly-bare shelves.
Inspired By The YouTube Performance Of
“Let Us Break Bread Together (2020)” By Joan Baez
Bailey Shafer
You feel the aching plight,
Much of this world taking wingless flight,
As we tread on, all the words unsaid become our song.
We scour narrowing streets of reason and our hearts,
For the unflinching power,
To awaken goodness again…
Oh, where on Earth has it been?
The resonance of the crowd’s outrage,
Joining in a collective hunger…
“It seems we are tethered to lives too burdensome to bear…
People are still dying, and not just ‘here or there.’”
“In similar ways, some speak of ‘glory days,’ when bias was imagined to be younger,
Compared to the hate-filled crypts many today have left so hollow…
Why is strife the guiding light and dirge we all must follow?”
American Revolution Poem
Jessica IANGPAR, Grade 7
Indianapolis, IN
For countless years Great Britain ruled,
Colonists complained; they were beaten and bruised.
Even after they left in search of new land,
They stayed under Great Britain’s unfortunate command.
British Redcoats during the Boston Massacre,
Were justly made fun of but an attack occurred.
Five lives were taken,
The people were shaken.
As if that weren’t enough,
Things became even more tough.
The colonists were angry and annoyed,
They boarded a ship and tea was destroyed.
The intolerable acts were unfair,
It left the colonists in despair.
Soldiers barged into their homes,
Not caring whether they imposed.
So both sides fought an oddly short battle,
Because one gunshot off and the people were rattled.
The battle took place in Lexington, hence the infamous name,
Nobody knew which side shot first so nobody was to blame.
During the Fourth of July,
A declaration was signed.
Written by the third president of the United States,
That day was among the most important of all dates.
It was called the Declaration of Independence,
Eight delegates were nonattendance.
However, that was of no concern,
For the British had discerned.
After many lives were lost and after many bloods were shed,
The colonists were free from Britain’s coats of red.
Oblivion
Anastasia G. Yiannoutsos, Grade 7
Indianapolis, IN
Oblivion.
I learned to fear it, I believe I always have. The fear of forgotten memories that none could grasp. I wish that no one would forget all that I am, but it is inevitable. Eventually, death will take me and guide me along the river of lost souls that Father Time casts away. In this time of sickness, death is knocking on each of our doors to take its next victim, but all I wonder is whether the next knock will be on mine.
Death.
In this time of broken-hearted solitude, snuffing out our world’s brightest lights seems to be all too common and the hopeful flame of our children’s security is doused with the evidence that no one is safe. Yet, no one listens to the pleas of the public to stay away. To lock our doors and stay within our humble abodes. As people lose their livelihoods to the illness that now ravages all the corners of the world, we, those that have a home, a meal, a life that focuses on more than just surviving, complain of ennui and boredom. It is pitiful to think that we are unable to do anything besides stay imprisoned in our own home. Lost in our own minds, lugubriously laying on the hill of regrets that we all visit in the darkness.
The cover of Darkness.
The juveniles that callously disobey their kindreds, fraudulently conniving with others of their age. Window locks slide open. The light thump of feet hitting the grass below the sill. Keys jangle malevolently as the low purr of a car’s engine gives away the evidence that everyone is gone. Gravel and asphalt crunches beneath the weight of the vehicle, bearing witness to the adolescents that know nothing of the danger that lies beyond the human eyesight. Infecting them with illness, endangering those closest to them. Darkness conceals them as they, one day, add this moment to the ever-increasing hill of regret that comes with young adulthood. Even if the child is not caught, the consequences of their actions with be reaped none the less. They may never know when, or how but they will be punished
Consequences.
The consequence of a rash memory that fills our hearts with regret. The punishment of wrongdoing, the guilt that plaques out very souls scratching at our mind years later. Each child that runs, selfish, puts another at risk. Death is a heavy price, yet it seems the children of my generation only seem to understand the instant gratification of companionship. And yet, never appreciate the power of distance and safety. Life is a game to most of them, a game of winning and losing, of impulsive decisions that will decide us entirely. Many argue of the natural occurrence of indignity that is young adulthood, that their frontal cortex is not yet fully developed. But if I, a child of the tender age of thirteen, I am able to decide that I will do my best to stay away, why can’t those older than me not control themselves? Are they willing to believe that nothing will come to bite them in the back? The retribution of the illness is not a petty farce, but broken regret that haunt the carriers.
Opening.
The reopening of the state was a wretched idea, but an idea that is necessary to the state’s economic welfare. It seems that as the government tries to rebuild; they are forced to decide between death and collapse. They have decided death, for some, the deaths brought by small children that are viral carriers of disease, that smear their grubby prints onto everything they touch, the deaths of healthcare
providers as they are overwhelmed by the waves of new patients. I believe that they do not want people to die, they want people to survive after this is over, to avoid a similar collapse of the economy that occurred during the great depression. Yet it seems that the sacrifice that it takes to do this are the gravestones newly erected in the Crown Hill cemetery gardens and all other like it. Sadly, all we can do is wait and watch hoping that we do not have to face oblivion. Maybe that is why I write these passages of passive anger, so that the name Anastasia Yiannoutsos, the name of a dream, is not forgotten. So that oblivion is not something that I need to fear. However, as I watch from the window of my bedroom, waiting to leave this home that I have spent too many days in, I wonder: are there things that are more frightening than being forgotten? I’ll wait for something to come and disconcert me as much as the fear of lost memories do.
[thoughts that will fill a journal over the course of 9 months]
Eros Preston, Grade 10
Zionsville, IN
1) faith is not always instinctual, nor is it always learned
2) trust should not be a transaction
3) family is not always the one you are born with
4) the past is the past.
5) sometimes it is okay to rely on others
6) not everything is your fault; fate, if there is such a thing, cannot be controlled
7) love should not hurt
8) children should not be held accountable for the actions of others
9) cats are wise and know things that humans do not. listen to them.