Time is meaningless
Now at 42 years, I sit in the living room,
awaiting my students to join me on Zoom.
Notes prepared, the camera on my laptop is set.
I’m adjusting the screen, careful
of what it shows of my background,
what the students will surmise of my home-life.
In the background, I’m 12 years, there are
Bros posters on all four walls of my bedroom,
and my dressing table with its oval mirror
has recorded all the tears I couldn’t cry,
didn’t know how to cry. No matter how
I angle the screen, it still shows my old room.
Thirty years have collapsed between
my dad’s death then and the thousands
of deaths now. The ground of time
has broken, as we sit with our arms
held out to each other, sand slipping
beneath our feet, hands not touching.
LOCKDOWN
Daffodils – large cups, small cups, miniature,
trumpet and not forgetting double daffodils –
all singing their various happy songs, including
the raucous ones, and somebody somewhere
is dying of corona and somebody somewhere
is dying of an abusive relationship and is not
allowed out the door and somebody somewhere
is dying as their mental health fails and the suicidal
voices becomes louder, and still the daffodils go on
singing and somebody somewhere is crying out to be
with a loved one who doesn’t live with them, and
somebody somewhere is crying for their grandfather
or grandmother who can’t find the next breath
to breathe and somebody somewhere is crying
because they’re scared they might be next and their
son or daughter might be next and somebody
somewhere is dreaming of green spaces and somebody
somewhere feels the walls closing in and somebody
somewhere is trying to believe the words of their friends
when they tell them they care and the daffodils
they go on singing.
Under a Pink Moon
Each one of us in a small rowing boat
in the face of Hokusai’s wave
Sometimes there’s a hole in the bottom
but a stranger who becomes a friend paddles near
offers caulk and sealant to stop the leak
another hands you a waterproof jacket
We’re all in the same boat here
even though we’re in separate vessels
even from a distance
Bethany Rivers
I especially like the third poem Bethany. Yes we are all on the same boat but it’s nice to know that we are cheering each other on.
Comment by Karen on 21 April, 2020 at 2:01 pm