The Year 2020: A poetic retrospective

I’m pretty sure that for the rest of our lives, we will remember everything as having happened either before or after COVID. The year 2020 has changed everything, both large and small. It’s been a time of unparalleled sickness, in both body and mind. And so I’d like to propose that opticians find a new word or number for describing perfect vision. From now on, the term 2020 should refer to an absolute absence of insight, hindsight and foresight.

We can’t seem to agree on whether masks increase or decrease the spread of the virus. Neither is there a consensus regarding the origins of the pandemic — a lab in China, a cell tower in Wales, an evil pedophile plot. Whether this is part Bill Gates’s master plan for world domination or a stroke of genius from Netflix to drive ratings, we may never know.

But one thing’s for sure, we’re all going to be a whole lot happier looking at the year 2020 through the lens of a rear view mirror. On that note, I happily offer this poetic retrospective on a year we’d rather forget but certainly never will.

20/20 Hindsight

          T’was Friday the 13th, in the year 2020
          The threshold of spring, and it’s not even funny
          The germs were arriving from windward and lee
          And guns could not stop them, nor vitamin C
          Infectious, invisible, into your tissues
          Then face mask behavior eclipsed other issues

          Was it worse than the flu? Or as bad as an ouchie?
          Nobody knew, so we asked Dr. Fauci
          Who argued explicitly, begging for distance
          To flatten the curve and preserve our existence
          To cease and desist with the shaking of hands
          So turn up the Netflix and cancel your plans

          Suspicions were cast on a Chinese mutation
          And measures were taken to stop immigration
          With a wall on the border to head off the tide
          But suddenly everyone’s locked up inside
          And stockpiling certain protective equipment
          For rolls of TP, please await the next shipment

          Week after week, our endurance was taxed
          So starting in summer we all just relaxed
          The virus, as promised, was going away
          But everywhere someone had something to say
          Some claimed that COVID would not disappear
          But conspiracies offered us new things to fear

          Mind control, perverts and pizza-gate cronies
          Newscasters, fact checkers, spewing baloney
          The savior determined to make our land great
          Would be thwarted by trolls from a very Deep State
          It seemed as if nothing we heard could be true
          Unless we subscribed to the channel of Q

          And then came November, the casting of ballots
          And long overdue to be cleansing our palates
          A sense of astringency still in our mouth
          Served up from Square States and out of the South
          But even when numbers appear to be certain
          It’s harder than ever to lower the curtain

          20/20, it used to mean eyesight that’s flawless
          But this year, in hindsight, will always appall us
          Still our resistance should not be discounted
          Regardless of how many cases are counted
          No matter on which side you choose to be seated
          We all can declare that we’ve not been defeated

Panegyrical postscript

Those of us who can still look back and laugh can also be grateful for having survived a year in which so many millions of others did not. As we make light of toilet paper shortages and politicized paranoia, let’s also remember those on the front lines, those who’ve lost jobs, businesses and loved ones, as well as those who lost their lives. And let’s hope and pray for a better ’21.

Further Reading

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