May 2021
Bio Note: I found myself listening to a lot of John Prine yesterday, as it was the one year anniversary
of his death. I decided to submit my poem, Re-Traumatized, that I wrote at the end of February of last year,
which happened to borrow from the feeling and sound of his song, “Angel From Montgomery”. I was writing at the very
start of the pandemic; it seems fitting as both a remembrance of Prine, now gone, and the pandemic’s start, now we’re
over a year in to it. The second poem, Insomnia, is unfortunately also very fitting for me currently.
Re-Traumatized
thank you John Prine; “Angel From Montgomery” Make me a cardinal who flies to the pine boughs. Give me a good song from the old radio. Chirp to me like a black-capped chickadee; just pierce my heart and I’m down on my knees. Well, the snow is melting, and the wind is howling, and everyone around me is feeling ill today. I’ve survived one epidemic, found love, and had children, but the coming pandemic is getting me re-traumatized. Make me a cardinal who flies to the pine bough. Sneeze into your elbow and don’t come this way. I don’t know the remedy to keep on surviving. I don’t have the answers; just keep living day by day.
Originally published in HIV Here & Now’s Na(HIV)PoWriMo April 10, 2020
Insomnia Song
Sleep, come to me.
I long for your embrace.
To wake in the morning, refreshed;
ready to face the seasons, come what may.
Sleep, come to me.
I’ll ride your rolling waves to shore,
lapping sand, rocks, shells,
salty and bleached from the sun.
Sleep, come to me.
Let me float in your clouds’
morphing form;
a white pillowy mist.
Sleep come to me,
and we will see what tolls are paid
to enter a highway of dreams.
Sleep, gentle sleep, I breathe you in,
and out.
I ride you up,
and down.
My pulse has slowed; my frown is gone.
Be my guardian.
©2021 Marjorie Moorhead
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