Jim Tilley

The Matter of Inoculations

Perhaps I should write about the loss
of our ability to inoculate the country
against outbreaks—
of racism, sanctioned violence,
and the spread of general ignorance,
corruption, and incompetence—
but of more immediate importance
to our children and grandchildren
is their susceptibility to measles, for one,
the seeds of skepticism sown by
the chief of Health and Human Services,
a person not at all like the gentleman
I encountered recently on a plaque
extolling the hero of the 1765-66 smallpox
epidemic in Chatham, Massachusetts,
the resident physician who vaccinated citizens
any time of day or night,
until he, too, succumbed—
that honoring plaque at a cemetery
in a nature preserve that served long ago
as a training ground for militia
during the Revolutionary War.
Thin, weatherworn headstones
with engraving virtually illegible
mark graves that are not  burial plots
for soldiers, instead for a few victims
of the smallpox outbreak. Now,
as history seems destined to repeat itself,
we can easily imagine preserves
being repurposed as militia training grounds
or cemeteries needed to house the fallen
in upcoming epidemics and wars,
or as holding tanks for the masses
before their third-country deportations,
preserves that might otherwise continue
to be home to the precious flora and fauna
of our planet, the large and the small,
like the marbled salamander, fairy shrimp,
and wood tadpole flourishing
in the vernal pond here at Chatham’s
Training Field Triangle Conservation Area.

 

Jim Tilley has published four full-length collections of poetry and a novel with Red Hen Press. His short memoir, The Elegant Solution, was published as a Ploughshares Solo. Five of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His most recent poetry collection, Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe: New & Selected Poems, was published in June 2024. His forthcoming collection, When Godot Arrived, will be published in 2026.