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There is something in the Neruda poem, something in the pandemic of 2020, that has us without rush, without engines, all together, in a sudden strangeness. But it is only strange because it's an experience we haven't lived through before. Keeping quiet, listening to the other voices, feeling the strangeness, coming to an understanding that we've been offered another way to look at the world, for me at least, is the ask of 2020 - the correction - and with it an urgent request for us to change. 

The title for the article comes from the Neruda poem cited here...

Keeping Quiet

Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve

and we will all keep still

for once on the face of the earth,

let's not speak in any language;

let's stop for a second,

and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment

without rush, without engines;

we would all be together

in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea

would not harm whales

and the man gathering salt

would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,

wars with gas, wars with fire,

victories with no survivors,

would put on clean clothes

and walk about with their brothers

in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused

with total inactivity.

Life is what it is about...

If we were not so single-minded

about keeping our lives moving,

and for once could do nothing,

perhaps a huge silence

might interrupt this sadness

of never understanding ourselves

and of threatening ourselves with

death.

Now I'll count up to twelve

and you keep quiet and I will go.