Ellen Skilton’s Like Every Good Thing offers poignant words that touch on a universal feeling experienced by humanity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic – the sacredness of human interaction. As a practicing Quaker, Ellen told The Dewdrop that she believes the inner spirit can be found in the natural world and in human connection after the isolation during the pandemic.
Like Every Good Thing
Wide, sapphire, hawk-swooped skies
took the chill out of our lonely bones
but it was the hum of human sounds that
moved us, like hearing a favorite song
at just the right time
We congregated
in familiar yet haunted spaces,
not touching fingers or cheeks
even though we could have
if we dared
We were close enough
under the event tent
to recall being in the same room,
cold enough to seek heat,
assemble like turtles in the sun
Behind cloth-covered lips,
six feet between our toes
it felt like every good thing
to gather together
more holy than I remember.
Ellen Skilton
Ellen Skilton is a professor of education whose publications have appeared in Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Curriculum Inquiry, TESOL Quarterly, and Rebelle Society. She is an educational anthropologist, an applied linguist and a Fringe Fest performer. She is in the first year of an MFA Program in Creative Writing at Arcadia University. She is an excellent napper, a chocolate snob, a swimmer, and lives in Philadelphia with a dog named Zoomer, a cat named Katniss and some lovely humans. Find her on Instagram at @elleninphilly and Facebook at facebook.com/ellen.e.skilton.