One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became The Scream. —Edvard Munch (1892)
The past before us
Is the past we all share now
Twice past
Twice blessed
Roaming through the ages
When we jammed into rooms
Bars houses apartments
Together breathing the same air
Breathing the same context in time
An earlier landscape internalized
For physical connections we took for granted
For fun for chances to spar and joust
In person together
Together but apart in our mind’s eye
Because we could be that way
That aloof that cool
But still there
Pre-pandemic
Meant pre-separation
Pre-pandemic
Meant we panicked about different things
To say the least because we could
Say the least and get away with it
The air we breathe
The air we pass on to others
Is existential now
We are each other’s crisis