Plague Poems: Advice to Myself

Monotony sets in.

The daily routines,

so predictable,

can be seen as

either comforting

or boring.

Take hold of the monotony

and make it holy.

Invest love

in what recurs

day after day.

One day,

it will end – this monotony, 

boredom, predictability.

Let this day be

an appreciation

of the ordinary,

a blessing of

continued breath.

Birthday Poem

One more year passed

in a long life.

One more year beginning.

In these times,

no amount of time

can be taken for granted.

This is nothing new,

yet the immediacy

of the moment is

somehow more real now.

It is as though Death

had been looking at us

from a great distance, and now

 it is right before us.

Hello, Death.

I see you there.

You make this day more precious.

I tender my respect.

I apologize for taking so long

to make you an offering.

Relections A Few Weeks In. And a Poem

Evening sky.  I watch the sky a lot, an easy thing to do from our hillside home.  I don't mind waking up before the sun rises so that I can watch the dawning sky.

I, like most of you, am now over two weeks into sheltering in place.  What I've begun to notice in my own family's moods and reactions is that things are really starting to register now, to sink in.  How serious this is.  How long it could go on.  How hard it can be to be alone.  How we miss being with certain people when Zoom and Facetime can't fill the gap. 

I do appreciate posts on Facebook of nature or humor, even dark humor.  I'm having a harder time taking in ones that are optimistic.  Too facile, perhaps?  And talk about the crazy-making discrepancies in information!  First it's wash your groceries with soap and water; then, it's soap will hurt you.  Elderberries are good.  Elderberries are bad.  Sometimes Facebook feels like a lifeline, and sometimes I just need to shut it down.

This morning I heard two radio shows about the difficulties pregnant women are facing.  Man, that is a tough one.  Here is another, on a sort of similar theme.  Some of us will need health care that is not coronavirus-related.  I find myself in that situation, and, boy, is it problematic.  No doc wants to see you come in.  Some of us may have to do so and undertake the risks that involves.  And yet, at least for now, I don't have the dreaded virus, and I don't want to minimize my gratitude and recognition of the privilege I have been fortunate to have.  I have a home, food, family, friends, books, poetry.

I've turned to writing a poem a day.  Many are just rants.  Once in a while something comes that I nod my head to.  Turning to Persephone is always my way.  Here's one of those.

Help

She paces.

Like Persephone,

she knows confined spaces.

She wants to listen

but needs to still herself,

and the pacing

does not help.

Help.

That is the word.

Help.

Is she being called?

Or is she the one calling?

That is the beginning

of finding an answer.

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?

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.

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.

A New Poem: The Lake and the Turbines

In a recent training with Deena Metzger, one of my friends told a story about going on a retreat near Lake Erie and being dismayed by seeing turbines around the lake.  Deena then said something that has stayed with me:  The lake has to live with it.  It can't leave.  

She went on to say that it's impossible to hold the awareness of what colonial mind has wrought, and yet we must hold it.  To revision things, we must move into a different mind.

And so, this poem:

Glowing red

in the night sky,

the turbines’

hellish light

reflects in

the calm waters

of the winter lake

that can never escape

their intrusion.

The lake must bear

what pollutes it.

We can walk away,

leave the fiendish glow,

but we still

carry its shadow

with us.

Lake Erie at night