Poem written by WKU English professor Tom Hunley during the Covid-19 pandemic

Hunley, Tom C.

English

TopSCHOLAR

Western Kentucky University TopSCHOLAR® Faculty/Staff Personal Papers WKU Archives Records Spring 2020 UA37/2 We Will Survive Tom C. Hunley Western Kentucky University, tom.hunley@wku.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/fac_staff_papers  Part of the Poetry Commons, Public Health Commons, and the Virus Diseases Commons Recommended Citation Hunley, Tom C., "UA37/2 We Will Survive" (2020). Faculty/Staff Personal Papers. Paper 94. https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/fac_staff_papers/94 This Poem is brought to you for free and open access by TopSCHOLAR®. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty/Staff Personal Papers by an authorized administrator of TopSCHOLAR®. For more information, please contact topscholar@wku.edu. What Will Survive   1. Sunlight wrapped around a violet like a wealthy woman’s bejeweled dress. 2. Shards of ice floating on a river, mirrors for clouds to shave by. 3. Every atom belonging to me, to you, but maybe not our yen for dollars. 4. Scorpions, who can slow their metabolism to survive on one insect per year. 5. Music, that holy silence just after ceasefire. Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” but probably not the band Survivor. 6. Social class distinctions, sadly. Social distancing, probably not. 7. Shaky hands finally settling down. The handshake, not likely. 8. Ants, who kill the infected before a virus can spread across their hill. 9. Mountains and their coldness, their hardness, their way of taking your breath and making of it a prayer. 10. The human heart, unharmed, though homeless as a hermit crab. 11. Keith Richards. 12. The echo of church bells ringing — but not one word uttered by a televangelist. 14) Superstition. 15) The television show Survivor. Television, but not for long. 16) Questions will survive. But what about declarations? 17) Smooth stones sung to by rain. 18) Raindrops sunbathing on smooth stones.   19) Twinkies, but probably not our custom of eating birthday cake after someone blows out       candles. 20) Poetry, though it be written in the cadences of cockroaches and mud minnows. Also       Larkin’s line What will survive of us is love tattooed on whatever skin is left to find. 

UA37/2 We Will Survive

https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1097&context=fac_staff_papers

UA37/2 We Will Survive

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