"Life and Pandemic" - Spring 2020

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What, Then, Will Be Leftis in you. Then run again. Let this fuel you and keep running. Run on bythe ruins, by the shadows, by the ash. Run on too by the growing trees,by the children’s games, by the shining sun. And see them all, and hearall, and learn. All these things are here and will be and have been.Hear me as you know in our collective soul they continue. Perhapsthat is our lot in this universe. To continue. To live our story so thatothers can hear it and live it again. Yes the message gets smudged andreinterpreted and rewritten along the way. Here it is flood where thereit was fire, here it is beast where there it was brother. But perhaps themessage fairs for the better in this. Maybe one day we will learn. Maybewe have. Many things have changed from our mothers’ day, and manyare the same. Life though is change, and after the world is destroyed, weshall see the faults that broke it and fill the holes in our fathers’ stories.We must re build, and better, lest we mistakenly build dams to block thewaters that wash us clean.We must look around and count the dead. We must look aroundand clear the dirt-caked windows. We must look around and see ourselves,what we have done, who we have killed, what we have saved. Wemust tally our actions and plan again. How will we prepare, how will weprotect, how will we reassess. We will not understand why, but we mustlearn the how. Learn to stave off our evils, control our hungers, give toall our fellow beings, and wrench life from the dead earth like a flowerplucked from impenetrable secrets of the desert. We will work, withoutunderstanding, but we will work. We will never know what it was, whatit all is for. A breath, held unrelentingly after having been fought so hardfor to win, finally released when, spent, understood, accepted.Yes the world has ended many times. Let it again. Next time,there will be a next time. We will do better, fight harder, run faster. Goodor bad right or wrong that is what we do. We run from the empty inherentin us but we are thus pushed toward what we have deemed good.Fullness, is laughter, love, and life. Yes and what is at once full is alsoempty, lovely wretched, healthy sick, living dead, because without onethere is not the other. They ebb and flow like the tides, dragging us underand pushing us farther. They are the shadow, cast only when there is sun,throwing darkness and providing cool shade. They are the fire, whosepath is destruction, clearing away death and bringing warmth and light.They are the earth, containing our dead and our life, burying what’s goneand feeding the seeds of new birth, supporting our restless feet and swallowingour weary bodies when our time is come. In the days after theCaitlyn Johnson
What, Then, Will Be Leftapocalypse they are what is left. They are all around us, they are withinus, they are us. And no matter how we run from them, they shall continue.Caitlyn Johnson
Page 1 and 2: NEW FORUMSpring 2020A literary jour
Page 3 and 4: ContentsKristen Chastain Things I L
Page 5 and 6: Emergencewe stand on the shores of
Page 7 and 8: Myself at a DistanceWhen this is al
Page 9 and 10: UntitledJiaying Jing
Page 11 and 12: (heart)hi am a gallery ofthird-degr
Page 13 and 14: (heart)hi remember weeping the nigh
Page 15 and 16: My Magician, AmericaSnapped her slu
Page 17 and 18: Pandemic as Spiralis laying awake o
Page 19 and 20: How to Write an Essay During a Pand
Page 21 and 22: Trans in PandemicI feel trapped, li
Page 23 and 24: Because You Are Here“Xingren is a
Page 25 and 26: a graceful body is never kind—i r
Page 27 and 28: Swansongthe notefalls flat.a piroue
Page 29: What, Then, Will Be Leftyour hands
Page 33 and 34: SolitudeAlessandro Verniani
Page 35 and 36: Sun ScreenI like sunscreen asin sun
Page 37 and 38: Rattler, and Other Things I Remembe
Page 39: YouTube, playing Animal Crossing, a

"Life and Pandemic" - Spring 2020

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