By Nonoy Espina
How do we love
In the time of Corona,
When even breath,
Embrace, and kiss
May slay?
Will stolen glance
Or fiery gaze
Suffice,
When hands seek
Touch only to
Wave goodbye?
To love again
We must endure
Loneliness and
Isolation.
Nonoy Espina is the chairman of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines.
I wrote this after watching a friend’s heartbreaking video of his mother singing over a video call to his older brother breathing his last in isolation.
Songwriter Danny Fabella has turned the poem into a song:
https://twitter.com/DannyFabella/status/1242761098987626496?s=20
This almost had me in tears, I can only imagine what that situation was like.