For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid William Stafford There is a country to cross you will find in the corner of your eye, in the quick slip of your foot-air far down, a snap that might have caught. And maybe for you, for me, a high, passing voice that … Continue reading
Category Archives: Pandemic Poetry
Try to Praise the Mutilated World ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI, translated by CLARE CAVANAGH Try to praise the mutilated world.Remember June’s long days,and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.The nettles that methodically overgrowthe abandoned homesteads of exiles.You must praise the mutilated world.You watched the stylish yachts and ships;one of them had a long … Continue reading
Time for Serenity, Anyone?by William Stafford I like to live in the sound of water,in the feel of mountain air. A sharpreminder hits me: this world still is alive;it stretches out there shivering toward its owncreation, and I’m part of it. Even my breathingenters into the elaborate give-and-take,this bowing to … Continue reading
The Birds Outside My Window Sing During A Pandemic Lee Herrick What we need has always been inside of us. For some – a few poets or farmers, perhaps - it’s always near the surface. Others, it’s buried. It was in our original design, though – pre-machine, pre-border, pre-pandemic. I … Continue reading
Praise Song Barbara Crooker Raise the light of late November, the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones. Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees; though they are clothed in night, they do not despair. Praise what little there’s left: the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls, … Continue reading
Swallows Jens Kruse This morning, as I open my eyes,I see them,a dozen or so of them,swallows,flying in front of my windowsas only swallows can:gliding, then fluttering,with rapid, sharp turns,hunting insects,showing off to their mates,flashing white belliesin the early morningsunlight. I stand by my windowgazing at them in awethinking thatspring … Continue reading
“Hope” is the thing with feathers Emily Dickinson “Hope” is the thing with feathers -That perches in the soul -And sings the tune without the words -And never stops - at all - And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -And sore must be the storm -That could … Continue reading
You Can’t Have it All by Barbara Ras But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown handsgloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old fingeron your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.You can have the … Continue reading
from The Victorious Ones Chris Nealon Then came fire It wasn’t yet a new world, or the end of the old one But water, money, feeling overspilled their banks There was finally something real to be afraid of There was finally no reason to fear Even animals approached us as … Continue reading
Instructions on Not Giving Up Ada Limón More than the fuchsia funnels breaking outof the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’salmost obscene display of cherry limbs shovingtheir cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slatesky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the treesthat really gets to me. When all the shock … Continue reading
In April Rainer Maria Rilke Again the woods are odorous, the lark Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark, Where branches bare disclosed the empty day. After long rainy afternoons an hour Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings Them … Continue reading
Hope Czeslaw Milosz Hope is with you when you believeThe earth is not a dream but living flesh,That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,That all things you have ever seen hereAre like a garden looked at from a gate. You cannot enter. But you’re sure it’s there.Could we but … Continue reading
Rufus Hummingbird Reflections — by Jens Kruse — A few days ago a rufus hummingbird arrived at my feeder. He – I have seen no females yet – was an inspiring sight: Selasphorus rufus had come here all the way from Mexico. They come here every year, but this year … Continue reading
Arithmetic Carl Sandburg Arithmetic is where numbers fly like pigeons in and out of your head.Arithmetic tells you how many you lose or win if you know how many you had before you lost or won.Arithmetic is seven eleven all good children go to heaven- or five six bundle of … Continue reading
The Peace of All Things by Wendell Berry When despair for the world grows in meand I wake in the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,I go and lie down where the wood drakerests in his beauty on the water, … Continue reading
Lockdown by Richard Hendrick Yes there is fear. Yes there is isolation. Yes there is panic buying. Yes there is sickness. Yes there is even death. But, They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise You can hear the birds again. They say that after just a … Continue reading
