Booster Shot

 

I got mine last night.  Today I have a very sore arm and many achy muscles and chills.  But I'm ok now.

Here are some poems related to COVID:

In the Time of Plague

We keep indoors.
When we dare to venture out
We are cautious. Our neighbors
Smile, but in their eyes there is
Reserve and suspicion.
They keep their distance,
As we do ours, in mute accord.
Much of our fear is unspoken,
For there is at last the weight of custom,
The tender of rote consolation.
We endure thoughts of demise
And measure the distance of death.
Death too wears a mask.
But consider, there may well be good
In our misfortune if we can find it. It is
Hidden in the darkness of our fear.
But discover it and see that it is hope
And more; it is the gift of opportunity.
We have the rare chance to prevail,
To pose a resolution for world renewal.
We can be better than we have ever been.
We can improve the human condition.
We can imagine, then strive to realize,
Our potential for goodness and morality.
We can overcome pestilence, war and poverty.
We can preserve our sacred purpose. We can
Determine who we are in our essential nature
And who we can be. We are committed to this end
For our own sake and for the sake of those
Who will come after us. There is a better future,
And we can secure it. Let us take up the task, and
Let us be worthy of our best destiny.
N. SCOTT MOMADAY
Santa Fe, N.M.
The writer is a novelist as well as a poet and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1969 for “House Made of Dawn.”

and this:

The Soul Selects Her Social Distance

 

The pandemic has prompted me to consider how Emily Dickinson might feel about social distancing.

 

The soul selects her own society,

Then shuts the door.

She keeps her social distance of

Six feet or more.

Unmoved, she notes the careless crowd

Outside her gate;

Unmoved, she notes the feckless folk

Still tempting fate.

I’ve known her from those foolish people

Choose none

Then turn her mind to friends she’s meeting

By phone.

FELICIA NIMUE ACKERMAN

Providence, R.I.

and  one more:

The Before Times

 

Before we were living in a pandemic, we went to lunch with

our friends in restaurants & slurped soup with crackers

we crushed with our bare fingers, our ordinary fingers

that did not ignite terror, that were not vectors of disease.

 

Before the days of self-isolation, shopping was just another chore,

sometimes a pleasure, a stroll through Costco sampling

from little paper cups protein bars & chocolate candies &

popcorn & potato chips, strolling & sampling & buying

big bags of broccoli & spinach & Asian cashew salad

& giant containers of gourmet cheese & yes, toilet paper.

The Before Times have receded deep into memory as if

all of that happened ten, no, twenty years ago

when we lived in another land of freedom & movement

& laughter & hugging & sitting in each other's

living rooms, living, alive, chatting for hours without

measuring the social distance, without wearing N95

surgical masks or nitrile gloves, without anxious fear.

 

Now we are living in another land, frightened & confused,

our minds always tasked with remembering to wash our hands,

not touch our faces, not touch packages or mail without

gloves & Clorox wipes & yes, remembering to worry,

as if anxious worry could create a high wall surrounded by a moat

of reeking & fuming disinfectant to keep us safe in this new land

of contamination & fever & suffocation & death.

 

We must not forget the Before Times, when we could touch

doorknobs, doorbells, the mail, U.P.S. packages, restaurant tabletops,

colleagues’ keyboards, other people’s hands, our own faces.

We must not forget dinner parties, book groups, political rallies,

concerts, movies, worship services, protests, weddings, funerals.

In the Before Times we shared our joys & sorrows together.

 

Will we ever live together again?

BONNIE SHAW

Salt Lake City

 

Sad to say, I have only written one poem since March of 2020,. What has happened to me?