Let an Old Man Hip You to Something

by Ernie McCray

I’ve always
thought of myself as hip,
up on things,
tuned in, with it, aware.
And then along comes a serious health scare
seemingly out of nowhere
and I’m feeling a bit square,
not so tuned in
and with it
and aware
because when I got word
that we could maybe
bring this deadly disease
to its knees
by wearing masks
and not getting too
close to each other
and washing our hands frequently,
never in my wildest dreams
could I have ever conceived
that we would
run around willy-nilly
and outraged
at being hipped
to how to keep ourselves
alive and safe:
refusing to cover our face,
some toting guns,
decrying the rules of the day,
on the steps of the capitol of their state;
standing shoulder to shoulder
at the beach
and rubbing against each other
in bars and cafes;
not giving a damn
that they might contaminate grandma
who’s of the age
most likely to die
from this dreadful plague.

I saw none of that coming my way
because I believed
we Americans
were the kind of people
who felt that, in spite of
our many shortcomings,
when we put our minds to a problem
there’s nothing we can’t achieve,
no obstacle
we can’t move out of our way.
I thought we were going to give it all we’ve got
in some kind of “American Way.”
“Yeah, right,” is about all I can say
about that today.

But let me hip you to something.
To how we need to understand
that we need to get as healthy as we can
since covid-19
is but one of the crises
that we have to face.
Hey, we’ve got a
political/economical system
that’s flat on its face
and issues around race
that are forever in our face
and Mother Nature
is revving up
to put on a show someday
of weather extremes
that will be the talk of the Milky Way –
all to say
we’re in the bind
of our lifetime
and we can’t
address such life determining challenges
without being strong of body
and strong of mind,
and that can’t happen
if we’re “double daring”
a killer bug to “cross a line”
like we’ve lost our mind.
That’s not hip anytime.
But what it’s come down to
is the hippest thing we can do
at this time:
wear a mask
and wash our hands
and keep a distance between us
at all times.

For the wellbeing
of all of humankind.