Rename it Year-the-Redwing-Blackbirds-Came-to-the-Yard.
Is it true they were never here before?
Or was I not here enough to hear them?
Rename it How-to-Read-Eyes-101. Or
Intro-to-Zoom. Or Age-of-the-Unmoving-Odometer.
Is that any better than COVID-19, which grates
like the righteous shouts of politicians?
Or coronavirus, which sounds like
a chorus of ventilators?
Call it Killer-of-the-Wise-Generation.
Or Bringer-of-Empty-Schoolyards.
Period-When-I-Lean-into-Uncertainty.
Time-I-Know-How-Human-We-Are.
Silver-Lining-for-Introverts.
Yet-Another-Chapter-of-Inequity.
Call it Life-Taker. World-Changer.
Pandemic. Prayer-breeder.
Loss-Bringer. Choice-Maker.
Teacher.
Posts Tagged ‘Corona Virus’
Renaming the Chapter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus on May 26, 2021| Leave a Comment »
May 19, 2021
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, daily life, daughter, mother, quiet on May 19, 2021| 6 Comments »
Will I remember this day with its greening of grass,
its blooming of apple blossom, its stilling of pond?
Will I remember the sweetness of my daughter
not leaving the house for school on a Wednesday
because her classes are all online? Will I remember
how she comes to snuggle on the couch during lunch
and pinches my cheeks and teases me about my ugly feet?
Will I remember the terrible yellow sticky casings
of the cottonwood seeds, how they glue to the hood
of my car that rarely moves from the drive? Or
the lavender in the garden that always looks
grey and dead before it erupts into fragrant life?
Perhaps there is some wave of presence
that will carry such stillness forward, a current
of quiet, a tide of tenderness that will insist
on itself for years to come. How forgettable
it all is—and how cherished—this swooping of swallows,
this opening of iris. How necessary, this holding
my daughter while the dark pool of night curls around us,
this cradling each other as we say nothing at all.
Walking up the Fall Creek Road, 2021
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, meeting the self, walking on May 15, 2021| Leave a Comment »
I see my old self walking down.
She doesn’t have a mask in her pocket.
She doesn’t move to walk six feet away.
She leans in to hug me, as if it were the most natural,
ordinary thing to do. She looks offended
when I offer her an elbow.
She doesn’t yet know how a virus
will use genome origami to infect and replicate
inside host cells with terrible efficiency.
She doesn’t know the schools will close
and the stores will close and the streets will close
and the doors will close and it will all happen
in a week. She doesn’t know her daughter
will cry herself to sleep each night for weeks.
She doesn’t know her son will slip
into a darkness and rage she will try to carry.
How the days of her calendar will empty.
How pixilated her life will become.
How the hospital won’t let visitors in .
How she will miss her mother, her father, her friends.
How millions and millions will die.
And that’s just the health of it.
Part of me wants to tell her what’s coming.
I don’t.
Part of me wants to hug her back,
and I can’t quite explain why I do.
Because innocence.
Because she will be here soon.
Over a Year Later, I Grieve
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, friendship, Heartbeat, loss, singing on May 13, 2021| 2 Comments »
for Heartbeat, singing together since 1994
Every week we sang, sang blues
and ballads, folk songs,
rounds, pop songs, jazz,
love songs, chants. And we
didn’t just sing, we touched
and hugged, leaned in and loved,
ran our fingers through the waves
of each other’s hair, laughed till we peed,
and jostled and shoved and teased
and offered tissues and kissed cheeks
and brought the shared melodic air
into our bodies and returned it
into the room in currents of ecstatic song.
Oh we sang, how we sang, as if
singing were a life raft that kept us afloat
on the aching broken world.
Now, I sing alone in the kitchen.
Sometimes I’m haunted by the part
I sing—a harmony line unanchored
by the melody. With no tonic,
the tune feels off. There is so much
that’s missing, that’s lost.
Sometimes I make up a new song
and sing about what is here.
Good morning, hummingbird.
Good morning, loneliness. Good
morning big empty room.
The air holds the notes like shimmering drops
that sometimes leak out of my eyes
when I think of how we sang, the music
a life raft, and your voices, my friends, the oars.
Other Shoes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, friendship, healing, identity on May 5, 2020| 8 Comments »
We all belong to the same galactic oneness.
—Carlos Santana, Master Class
I could be the doctor who, overwhelmed
in the ER, went home and killed herself.
I could be the sixteen-year-old boy
who had to cover his father with a white sheet
before the coroner arrived.
I could be the white sheet.
I could be the lawmaker unable to sleep,
or her pillow that hears her cry out in fear
when at last the sleep arrives.
I could be the rhythmic hissing of the ventilator
or the wail of the wife, or the weary hum
of the custodian beneath her mask
as she wipes the surfaces clean.
It could be me, the eleventh death
in the town next door to mine.
It could be me, the one who
unknowingly makes you sick
because I don’t know I carry
something deadly inside my breath.
And so I don’t hug you when I see you
across the post office lobby,
though my heart leaps up to hold you.
Because you could be the flat line
on the EKG.
Because you could be number twelve.
After Reading the Headline About Rising Deaths
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, Corona Virus, courage, garden, resilience, song on May 4, 2020| 3 Comments »
Today I take the courage I don’t feel
and the resilience I doubt and
all my unspent longing to serve,
and I bring them, cupped in my hands,
to the garden. They nestle there in my palms
like three baby birds that have not yet
opened their eyes. I take them to hear
the pungent song of the garlic shoots
and the thriving chives who chant
how to survive the winter.
I bring them to hear the strawberry leaves
who sing how to flourish despite the frost.
and the old song of chicken manure
and composted grass that hum about
how old life begets new life.
And they open their tiny beaks,
as if they could eat the green song.
How vulnerable they are.
So I open to the song, too.
I do what must be done.
I take in the nourishing song,
and feed them with my own mouth.
Still Swimming
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, death, hair, mom, parenting, river, son on May 4, 2020| 2 Comments »
And so I pull the purple comb
through my son’s thick hair,
the same way I’ve seen
the stylists do at Great Clips.
Wet the hair. Comb it through.
Part it. Hold it between
two fingers. Cut vertically. Snip,
and his hair falls to the floor.
Comb it through. Snip. Snip.
We both know that I
have no clue what I’m doing.
So we laugh as the hair
piles up on the floor.
We chatter, the way
a stylist and customer would,
talking of school and his friends
and his unruly cowlicks. Snip.
I remember that time
I was trapped underwater
by the river’s hydraulics,
how I stared up at the light
shining through the surface
and thought, I don’t think
it’s my time yet to die.
And the river spit me out
and I swam hard as I could
through the rapid toward shore.
I don’t think it’s my time yet
to die. Nor my son’s. Though
all around us the news of dying—
the numbers increasing every day,
stories of beloveds who are gone.
We ask ourselves, how do we
go on? And meanwhile, we do.
We go on. And because my son’s hair
is too long for his taste,
I learn how to cut it by cutting it.
How much more will we learn
as this goes on? How to share?
How to grieve? How to let go? How to live?
And meanwhile, life spits us out
into sunlight, and we come up
spluttering, gasping, surprised
we’re alive, and we swim, what a gift
to find we’re still swimming.
It’s All Practice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, new, self, self talk on April 9, 2020| 10 Comments »
Tonight I can laugh at the part of me
who thinks she should know
the right thing to do, the right thing to say.
Meanwhile, the rest of me
wakes up each morning in wonder,
marveling at the quickly changing world.
Every morning this second self practices
how to bathe, how to dress. Even now she is practicing
how to write a poem, how to make breakfast,
what to say to her friends, family, herself.
She knows there are so many ways to do it right.
Every moment contains invitations
she’s never noticed before. Sometimes
she practices saying nothing at all.
If you see her lingering beside the road,
it is because she is practicing how to walk
how to see. She used to know, of course,
but now she can’t seem to take anything
for granted, how to drink tea,
how to walk into a room, it’s all new,
how to weep, how to smile.
Believing Things that Seem Impossible
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belief, Corona Virus, impossible, love on April 8, 2020| 9 Comments »
Like the giant rock, balancing in the desert
on a slender pillar of sand. Like the way
the full moon seems so much larger
when it first rises. Like how the bluebird,
smaller than my open hand, migrates
up to two-thousand miles in the spring.
Every day, the world bewilders me,
as if daring me to believe in other
impossible things. Like how closeness
to death makes us more alive.
Like people all over the world
choosing kindness over chaos.
Like love, that against all odds,
continues to grow.
Wanting a Fractal Love
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, fibonacci sequence, golden spiral, humanity, love, math, nature, pattern on April 5, 2020| 7 Comments »
Eadem mutata resurgo
Latin motto: Changed, I rise again
Sometimes in spring
I can still find the dried seeds
of the mountain mahogany
clinging to the ends
of the branches—
feathery golden spirals,
logarithmic and light.
How the universe
loves a pattern,
an elegant mathematics—
this same spiral is found
in spider webs, sunflowers,
snail shells, cyclones, the arms
of galaxies, the human ear,
even in the nerves of my cornea
that help me to see
the very pattern that
gives me the ability to see.
I want to find the self-similar spiral curve
that informs kindness and strength
as it spreads through a people. I want
to find the equation that calculates
an exponentially growing radius of love.
I want to find the dynamic beauty in us
that amplifies as it moves out
with ever increasing speed
from the infinite center.
I want to embody the trustworthy constant
that inspires our species to be better,
want to know the recursive courage that drives us
to thrive in difficult times.
Our potential, endless, yet humble
as last year’s seed in my hand, ready
to be planted, to sprout, to grow.
Poetry for the Pandemic: We Recorded the Reading
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged albert flynn desilver, Corona Virus, poetry video on April 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Hello Friends,
If you were unable to join us live for our April 3, 2020, reading, you can catch me and my friend Albert Flynn DeSilver doing a special online reading … about an hour long total. We each read for 15 minutes at the beginning, then open it up for a discussion based on viewer comments about the role of poetry in our lives right now.
I read exclusively poems written in the last three weeks–all of them found here on A Hundred Falling Veils–all of them speaking to the world we are in right now.
A Letter to the Woman in My Calendar
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged calendar, Corona Virus, fiction, reality, self, writing on April 1, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Dear Other Version of Myself,
In my calendar, it’s April second
and you are going to an event tonight
at a bookstore in another town
where the people will gather
and hug each other and taste
each other’s wine. You live in a world
that no longer exists, and every day
I try to reconcile it—how you
had plans to go camping next weekend,
how you were going to go to the theater
with no mask, no gloves,
no sense of your body as a weapon.
Every day, your life, which once was my life,
seems increasingly impossible.
Every day, these two worlds are farther apart—
the one in which you were getting on a plane
to visit your mother
and the one in which I put on rubber gloves
to go to the post office box.
I remember how seldom you washed
your hands for fear that someone you love
would die. I remember what it was like
to hug my friends with no worry
of harming them, to go to a restaurant,
to plan for a day past tomorrow.
Viola Tricolor
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blossoming, Corona Virus, death, flowers, medicine, showing up, spring, wildflowers on March 31, 2020| 2 Comments »
also known as Johnny jump up, heart’s ease, heart’s delight, come and cuddle me
Into the shade by the porch
bloomed the first wild pansy,
its small yellow face sunny
and eager and open.
The Athenians used to make
the tiny flowers into syrup
to moderate anger and
to comfort and strengthen the heart.
And here it is today,
small volunteer beauty,
growing in this patch of dirt
where nothing else wants to grow.
This tiny garden is but one of many
concurrent realities—others involve
hospitals short of beds, loved ones
gone, doctors scared to go home.
Our hearts need strengthening.
Little violet, we’re learning, too,
how to be surrounded by death
and still rise up, bring healing as we bloom.
Online Poetry Reading April 3
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged albert flynn desilver, Corona Virus, poetry reading on March 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Need a poetic boost? Join me and Albert Flynn DeSilver as we read poems inspired by and in conversation with the pandemic.
Albert is the author of Writing as a Path to Awakening. He’ll be hosting the reading on Zoom. After they reading, we will open the platform for a conversation: “What role is poetry playing in your life right now?” Join us April 3, 2020 6:30 PM MST (US and Canada). Please register in advance for this webinar:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pOZT_Vq2Rs6TQMRAT5ssTA
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
Here
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged be here now, bird, Corona Virus, listening, presence, song on March 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Even as the snow was falling,
the birds in the branches
kept singing into morning,
easing their bright notes
into the thin gray spaces
between snowflakes.
There are days, imagine,
when the birds go unheard.
And it isn’t for lack of song—
the single note chirp
of sparrow, the bass of raven,
the chickadee’s hey swee-tee.
Some gifts come only
when we stay in one place,
come only when we are alone,
come only when we stop praying
to be somewhere else and instead
pray to be here.
Some Enchanted Evenings
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, Corona Virus, Dennis McNeil, music, singing on March 27, 2020| 6 Comments »
with gratitude for Dennis McNeil
Every night now as I make dinner in Colorado,
I listen to a tenor sing live from his back porch
in California near the coast.
While I chop onions and chard
and sip on sauvignon blanc,
he belts tunes from Oklahoma
and Phantom of the Opera,
patriotic songs and Frank Sinatra,
and I sing along, my small soprano lifted
by his generous voice that baptizes the room.
This is the world I believe in—
a world ringing with beauty.
A world where people share their gifts
with strangers, knowing our lives
depend on this.
Between songs, he toasts us with gin,
and smiles. I return his toast with wine.
This is the way we carry each other
through difficulties, one song at a time.
Patience
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, falling in love with the world, heartache, patience on March 26, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Again today, the invitation
to fall in love with the world—
with the gray jay who flits
from empty branch to empty branch,
with the sharp scent of rabbit brush,
with the warm spring wind
and the dark buds on the crabapple
still tight with future bloom.
Some days, though the world offers itself,
it’s not so easy to fall in love—
days when heartache twists in the chest
and turns in us like a screw,
leaves us raw and sensitive, until,
too tender to hear any more bad news,
we shutter our hearts, we close our ears.
But if we’re lucky, an inner voice
sends us outside into the day,
and though it is gray, the world does
what the world does—
holds us despite our heartache,
holds us the same way it holds
the stubby pink cactus, all prickly and clenched,
the same way it holds last year’s thistles,
all brittle and flat and gray,
the same way it holds the dank scent of river
and the moldering scent of last year’s leaves,
holds us exactly as we are
until we are ready to fall in love again.
What I Can Do
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged children, Corona Virus, parenting, saying yes to the world as it is on March 24, 2020| 3 Comments »
for my children, for all children
I want to give you the kind of day we didn’t have today—
a day when the wide blue sky makes you rush outside,
when we go to the park and meet your friends
and you run to greet them—you hug and play chase
and tag and tackle and whisper in each other’s ears.
I want to give you a day warmed through by laughter,
with crisp green leaves already on the trees.
And on our way home we could stop for ice cream
and joke with the women at the counter
about how there’s not much news to share.
A day when you can’t imagine being afraid. When
you fall asleep not wondering when someone we know
will die. Instead, the world gives us this day—
this day with its fears and its warnings—and
I give you what I can: A scarf to play dress up in.
A homemade pumpkin pie. Dance party in the kitchen.
Three tired and perfect words. Open arms.
A reminder the sleet will make the grass green.
Secrets I will keep for now to myself. The slow tide
of my breath beside you as you fall asleep.
Lucky
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, luck, resilience on March 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now. History is happenin’.
—Lin-Manuel Miranda, “The Schuyler Sisters,” Hamilton
There are days when we know we are lucky—
when we go for a walk and find, beneath dead leaves,
yellow petals. When an envelope brings a surprise check.
When a loved one calls to say they will visit. When
our name is pulled from a hat.
And then there are days our luck is less clear.
When the commercial world as we know it collapses.
When the schools and restaurants and whole towns are closed.
When our paycheck is gone and we can’t pay
next month’s rent. When loved ones lives are threatened.
Yes then, it’s much harder to say we are lucky.
But. Every day, every day for the last week,
every day when I wake, I think to myself,
This, this is the day to make a difference.
This is the day to bring your best self to the world.
This is the day to shine and work and forgive.
Every cell in me is wildly alive. Every moment
feels like a gift. I’m transfixed. Every minute
feels like an invitation to show up more open,
more vulnerable, more brave than I ever dreamed I could be.
And damn, if that isn’t lucky, I don’t know what is.
The morning light, it reaches in,
bathes the whole room in gold.