Friday, March 27, 2020

Plague Poems: Business as Usual



It’s business as usual
in the natural world.
Spring has brought
profusions of blossoms.
Deciduous trees have
leafed out beautifully,
and the birds sing
in the dawn light.
The very normalcy of it all
presents a stark contrast
to what is happening
in the human world
that sits atop this one.

We have reached
a tipping point, our
collective actions not only
crushing the planet’s resilience,
but our sheer numbers and
dumb unwillingness to own
our folly have made life
frightening and untenable.
A plague of biblical proportions
runs amok through our cities
and over the countrysides
of all nations.
We have no business as usual now,
but nature goes on in its
ordinary, relentless fashion –
tides rising and falling,
seasons turning,
days dawning and subsiding.
These are the times we knew
would come.
These are the times we hoped
we would never see.
These are our times.
What is our business now?

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Two new plague poems.

My daily plague poems are mounting up, so I thought I'd share a few.  The first one was largely in response to waiting to hear from a doctor I'd been trying to contact for a week.  Stay healthy!  Not only from the coronavirus, but from more common ailments because it's challenging to deal with the overwhelmed medical establishment at all.  (Yes, I did hear from him finally, and it was very helpful.)

Waiting
  
Waiting for the doctor to call.
Waiting for the fear to subside.
Waiting for the pain to stop.
Waiting for the trees to speak.
Waiting for the flowers to rise up.
Waiting for tears to fall.
Waiting for the heart to open.
Waiting for consolation.
Waiting for restoration.
Waiting for grief to end.
Waiting for grief to begin.
Waiting for the exhalation.
Waiting for a new story.
Waiting for words from the ancestors.
Waiting.



And then I did hear from the trees.

Listening


In the dark
pre-dawn mornings,
I listen to the trees.
Sometimes I hear nothing,
but feel their reassuring presence.
Sometimes words sail
into my head,
like the goldfinches
landing on my bird feeder.
Today they told me:
Ground!  Ground deeply.
You will know people
who get ill.
You may know some who
will die.
You could even be
one of them.
Your task today
is to ground and be
a solid presence
on this patch of earth.
Watch us
and follow suit.

Sunday, March 22, 2020

Persephone Returns to Find a Pandemic

I have been writing daily (or almost) poems - what I'm calling plague poems, in this time when we are sheltering in place.  Most of them I've not thought much of, but today I thought about the beginning of spring, and Persephone's return.  This is what came. I can't say it's one of the deep and inspiring poems I've been reading on Facebook.  But it's certainly a different perspective!





Persephone returns
and finds her mother
busily commanding the revival
of spring flowers, the blossoms that will
turn to fruit, and the tiny
new green seedling heads,
primed for planting.
But the streets are so quiet,
the air surprisingly clear,
and there is a striking absence
of hustle and bustle.
Below, she had noticed
the large parade of arriving souls,
confused and stunned
by their fate.
But she had
paid that no mind.
There are always reasons
for mobs of souls to appear
in the underworld –
war, famine, floods –
all the disasters.
She looks around now
and sees no injury to
the earth itself.
Demeter looks up and
dusts off her hands.
“Pandemic,” she says
in answer to her daughter’s
wordless query.

Demeter points out her
jasmine, azalea, daffodils, freesia,
the flowering plums and leafed-out
pomegranate trees.
“Beautiful as always, isn’t it?”
She draws her daughter to her
in a welcoming hug.
“It is,” Persephone nods.
“Quiet.  But a little sad.”
“Humans!” Demeter replies,
shaking her head.
“Always getting into
one mess or another.
Maybe this time they
will learn something.”

“What can we do to help them?”
Persephone asks.
“I am helping them!”
her mother retorts.
“I am giving them beauty
and sustenance.
They must do the rest themselves.
They blame us or some other god
for their foibles, and sometimes
our wills do overcome them,
but this is not our doing.”
Shrugging their shoulders,
the two wander off, arm in arm,
to admire the mother’s
handiwork.