It is often said that great art is created during troubled times, so it should come as no surprise that Barnard — well-known for its alumnae writers — has seen this trend continue as the “twin pandemics” of COVID-19 and a renewed focus on racial injustice and violence sweep the world. In this limited series, Barnard community members share poems and songs that speak to this unique moment in time.
Today, for the second-to-last installment of the Pandemic Poets Society, Hannah Corrie ’17 reads her poem “Galileo Went Blind.”
Galileo Went Blind
Not from looking at the sun, which is what people say,
but from some bacteria that inhabited his eyeball like it was
a good planet. There’s no poetic justice here,
just so many small things clamoring to survive.
When I turn on the news now, it’s all the same.
Over and over they say, we’re killing ourselves
with our living. Over and over I tell myself
there is no meaning in irony. Outside, starlings
are singing. Upstairs, my sister is screaming.
Before, I was crying, but now I’m watching
as cumulus clouds gather like a cataract
over the luminous sky— I know
I should condemn the coming storm, its turbulent
brewing and unflinching center, say
it is wrong to make people suffer
and feel small, but
everything glows
in the low light.
I heard, after he lost his sight, Galileo stayed inside
and studied gravity. He spent his days rolling balls
down ramps, and, I suppose, learned to love the song
of the soft plummet, which means
something tethers us to this Earth
after all.
*Originally published in Posit, Issue 26.
