I. Is Beauty Enough?
Pink moon hovers above our virus-ravaged town,
where we pose stuffed bears in trees, hoping
to make locked-down children smile.
Spring brings its out-of-sync beauty.
Each day more people sicken. Die.
Isolated, we grieve on screens.
The plague of AIDS
was spread through pleasure.
Now, we fear the pharmacy, the mail,
veer from neighbors as we walk.
Discarded masks bring a new squalor
to gutters. How can we trust this world?
Still, the blossom-patterned grass is safe
under a plenitude of stars,
the full, pink Sprouting-Grass Moon.
.
II. What’s Seen
The cold spring noon’s deceptive light.
Wind cracking branches of the cherry trees.
My dog whimpers, strains at her leash.
A maskless jogger passes me, too close.
Wind cracking branches of the cherry trees.
Ahead, some power lines down.
A maskless jogger passes me, too close.
How easily we can be harmed.
Ahead, some power lines down.
What’s seen can be sidestepped.
How easily we can be harmed,
and the biggest threat’s invisible.
What’s seen can be sidestepped
but how clearly do we really see?
The biggest threat is as invisible
as God. The body count rises.
How clearly do we really see?
Behind the veil, the dead reach toward us.
As God watches the body count rise,
blossoms offer their myth of rebirth.
Behind the veil, the dead reach toward us.
My dog whimpers, strains at her leash.
Blossoms offer their myth of rebirth
in the cold spring noon’s deceptive light.
….
III. Covid, Still
Browning magnolia leaves fall
onto discarded gloves. Death
everywhere, if you look for it,
but don’t you think the gods are tired
of that same lament?
See, the dogwood is still full,
the tulips newly-opened, the sun
shining like luck. And all that family time!
Your older daughter emerging nightly
from her room to wail, This is hell. It’s hell!
Your younger clinging to your arm while
struggling with online school.
Your husband fills the kitchen
with laugh tracks and guns. He shows you
his hand, scratched by the emotional support cat,
who preferred her prior role as grumpy pet.
When will we be allowed to step back
into what we were? Or, as in myth,
is transformation permanent? Just in case,
you scroll through masks, decide
whether to change your family’s faces
into leopards or backdrops for multi-colored stars.
….
IV. I Can Return to Other Dangers
Death is scratching at the window.
Don’t try to insist it’s just a branch.
I know the things I know.
All my family’s elders are late eighties.
One aunt suffers strange fevers, the other’s
right eye tears and drips. My father
believes the election was rigged.
Early dementia or just brainwashing?
Today a fawn lay in the grass, sleeping
I convinced myself
until I saw the flies.
Summer’s sticky evenings shorten.
My husband snores and startles in sleep.
Death counts on his fingers – Eenie, meenie.
Music-blaring teens drive by, too fast.