Pandemic Poems - APRIL 2020
Bio Note: I am a northern New England writer; a mother, and an AIDS survivor. I found my voice
and community in writing poetry, and hope to keep sharing as part of my practices-for-health-and-sanity.
These also include a daily walk when possible, tai chi, and listening to and singing along with my indie
radio station. I'm looking forward to Spring blossoms.
Wild Goats of Llandudno Lockdown
coronavirus diary IX
Go goats, go!
Run wild, run free!
munch the hedges,
run atop ledges,
swarm the streets.
Stick together, or stray apart;
there’s no one to stop you now.
We’re at a distance;
sequestered in our bubbles,
living by remote.
How amazing to be a goat just now
and not hold back!
Feel your power; feel the wind
in your fleece!
Fly, fly through our streets
like a squadron of migrating geese!
We watch from windows, capture
you on video,
share with our captive kind,
through clouds of internet,
as we dream of freedom
Coronavirus Diary II
3/16/2020
Congregating (in groups more than fifty)
has become a danger.
Especially for those over sixty.
In the covid-19 pandemic,
we are sitting ducks.
My Father, sealed into his elder-care home.
Our younger son and college mates could be carriers.
This sucks!
Fear is creating toilet paper hoarders;
hand-sanitizer hogs.
A large group of crows is called “a murder”.
It seems we are all just swirling
black dots on a cluster graph,
mapping out contagion.
However, some communities
are forming; becoming stronger.
Books-to-read lists are circulating;
poems exchanged.
I was sent a link to “sixty minutes of calming music”.
Yes. Music is magic.
Humming, still alive, I’ll hold tight
to hope that Spring flowers arrive.
Descending On Us All
coronavirus diary VII
3/25/2020
There is a desperate friendliness
in the smile from walkers
as we separate to either side
of the street or sidewalk,
passersby in a pandemic.
The grin is a little too wide;
the lips pulled to an almost-grimace,
calling to mind skeletons;
the just skull and bones we are,
beneath it all. This is a friendliness desperate
to show connection. The distancing,
desperate to avoid droplets of a breath
which could be virus-laden,
in a time of isolation and sequestering
into private bubbles of protection,
hoping to avoid a sweeping coronavirus
cloud as it descends
on us all.
©2020 Marjorie Moorhead
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the
author (email address above) to tell her or him. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual.
It is very important. -JL