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Posts Tagged ‘Corona Virus’

IMG_0343

 

Just two weeks ago, it was sufficient

to say, hello, good morning, good bye.

But now, in every text, every email,

every phone call, I tell my friends

and family how much I love them.

I tell them life is better because

they are in it. I say it with the urgency

of a woman who knows she could die,

who knows this communication could be our last.

I slip bouquets into my voice. I weave love songs

into the spaces between words.

I infuse every letter, every comma, with prayers.

Sometimes it makes me cry, not

out of fear, but because the love is so strong.

How humbling to feel it undiluted,

shining, like rocks in the desert after a rain,

to know love as the most important thing,

to remember this as I keep on living.

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And tonight I think

of the seventeen Italian doctors,

dead. And the hundreds

of thousands of people

whose test results were positive.

And all the doctors, nurses,

health care workers—

some right here in our town.

I think of them eating breakfast,

reading the same discouraging news,

then kissing their loved ones,

putting on their shoes,

and walking out the door,

though resolution’s as elusive

as last month’s peace—

the peace we didn’t

even know we had.

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IMG_5939

 

 

It looked dead, the orchid.

After long extravagant glory,

the blossoms dropped quickly,

one by one. The stem shriveled,

dried. Every time I looked at it,

all I saw was what wasn’t there.

People said it would reset.

They said it needed rest,

a little bit of extra care.

But eight months later,

the plant still looked dead.

 

There are times we lose hope.

Times when our eyes tells us

we’re fools to believe beyond

what we see here now.

But from what seemed

like nothing, a long dark stem

appeared, lined with buds.

And what a fool I was to doubt,

to let the eyes lie to me.

Already they’ve remembered how to see

what will be. Already they remember

how to see the beauty

of exactly what is here.

 

 

 

 

 

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Quarantine

 

 

This morning, my teenage boy and I

sit quiet on the couch. He does not move

to pick up his phone. I do not rise to work

or rush to make a meal. We sit, leaning

the trunks of our bodies into each other.

We do not say much. I close my eyes

and cherish his sapling weight.

There are so few people I dare now hug—

our hands, our bodies dangerous—

but here in this house so still I can almost

hear him growing, here in these minutes

that fell off the clock, here I remember

how surely we baptize each other with touch.

Such simple blessing. Silence. The metronome

of breath. The leaning in. Infectious love.

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The News

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Just as I had settled into doom,

I heard the wild call of the first geese of spring

come screeching through the window.

 

I leapt up like a woman desperate

for good news—leapt up and ran to the window

in time to see a pair land on the pond,

 

splashing against the water. They quieted

immediately after alighting. And then,

there was only the sound  of me watching them.

 

How graceful they were in the pond,

the water wrinkled behind them, as if their arrival

were the only news, the only news worth telling.

 

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            for Donna

Today, for an hour,

I let the only news be

my body, my friend,

and the road we walked on.

Our footsteps kept time

to our chatter. We

spoke of family and fear,

health and uncertainty,

friendship and transformation.

We smiled and worried

and reveled in the day.

The hills were steep,

and we liked it that way.

Later I try to remember this—

how sometimes I choose

a challenging path on purpose.

How all the while

we huffed up the hill,

we were surrounded

by bird song, by laughter.

How speaking of difficult things

makes them less frightening.

How the road was a pleasure

when we walked it together.

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Any light I carry

is nothing I

have manufactured.

It’s entirely unearned.

It is easiest to notice

in the dark.

It cannot be faked.

Perhaps I wished

I could control it.

Instead, I marvel,

ask it, how

can I serve?

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And because she is wise

in the ways the young are,

my daughter, frightened and weeping,

asked between sobs

for a happy story.

 

There are times when a story

is the best remedy—

not because it takes us away

from the truth but because

it leads us closer in.

 

I told her the story of her birth,

and we laughed until

it was my turn to cry as I realized

no matter how scary the world,

what a miracle, the birth of a child.

 

Then, as fear made a sneaky return,

we whispered a list of things we

were grateful for, falling asleep with these

words on our breaths: cats, books, rivers,

home, family, soft blankets, music.

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And when fear comes to the door bringing flowers

acting as if it’s a friend,

it’s okay to not want to let it in.

It’s okay to lock the door—

it’ll make you feel as if you’re doing something.

Fear will enter anyway.

At least it won’t expect a hug.

It won’t wash its hands,

not even when you ask nicely.

And it is more contagious than any virus—

spreads without sneezes or coughs.

It won’t leave when you ask, but

there are ways to make it quieter—

like inviting a few others to join you,

preferably gratitude, compassion, love,

kindness, vulnerability. These friends

always come when asked, wearing

the loveliest perfume. They change

the conversation, the way lemon

and honey change the bitter tea.

They remind you who you are,

invite you to look out the window

and see how beautiful the world

when the shadows are long.

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That was the afternoon

we watched the avalanches—

dozens and dozens of them

flowing over the cliff bands.

How beautiful they were

from a distance—

bright falls of billowing snow.

They began as dark rumble,

then burst into plume, into rush.

Unstoppable they were.

Powerful. Inevitable.

Such a gift to feel humbled,

to exult in forces

greater than our own.

 

Later that night, reading

the tumbling graphs,

the sliding accounts,

the unforgiving reports,

I began to understand

the scale of the cliff.

 

And as everything

I thought I knew

slid over the escarpments

of comprehension,

how clear it all became.

What really matters.

How we’re all in this together.

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