It’s Not the Common Cold | Poems for the Plague

The Verse of a Pandemic read by Kenneth Keppeler on the Roots and Branches show on Gila/Mimbres Community Radio | Saturday, April 25, 2020 | GMCR.ORG

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The Verse of a Pandemic

This is poetry’s moment

and so is a winter subway ride, coats pressed against coats,

loose ends of scarves like wooly palm fronds,

on the way to a job you love, hate;

and that day in an Adirondack lean-to

(how infrequently we feel the rough skin of wood),

sheltered from primeval rains,

alone in the green light and cushioned

by the sound of water running free;

and the quiet kitchen, alive with the smell of 4 a.m. coffee,

the soft tread of bare feet,

domestic life mirrored in the window panes,

the day not yet tapping.

We are prisoners of circumstance no more

no less than

before the plague.

Poetry was never a luxury

it remains in the air,

we breathe in and out in hexameters;

the rhyme of traffic lights strung

along deserted, windy avenues;

found on the awnings of shuttered shops,

and lettered on the dusty sides of trucks,

delivering nothing to no one;

in the street shadows cast like runes,

leaning away from the setting sun;

and in the new liturgy you append

to every workaday message:

stay well, stay well, oh god stay well.

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my condolences

to the seniors, the shut-ins, the lonelyhearts

the working moms who can’t stop

the dads on the F-Train at 5 a.m.

hoping

to go another day without infection

seems like a miracle

to the bored, the terrified, the heartsick

the ones grieving alone

the sick, the dying

i pray

for the nurses, the doctors, the technicians

who swallow their fears and carry on

and the people who cook and carry out

and the cashiers whose masks are five days old

touching other people’s money can make you ill

in more ways than one

there are front lines everywhere

I’m so sorry this happened

to you, and you, and you

who clean and mend and watch

in uniform or out

and thank you all

including the priests and the poets

the singers and the social workers

to everyone, “guides, redeemers and benefactors”

who brings comfort know

there will be a spring without sadness

and you will have the last

word                                          

                                          © 2020 Robert J. Howe