Stuff I Have Learned About Myself During the Pandemic, Part One

Yesterday I chatted (while social distancing) with a neighbor whose name I don't know, although I do know his dog is named Hudson. Anyway, this neighbor said, "I'm an introvert and a misanthrope, but it turns out I miss seeing people."

And I was all dude. Truth. Turns out I miss seeing people, too. Turns out I am a lot more social than I ever thought I was.

I tried to turn this surprising insight into a poem, but I've been too busy painting bathroom doors instead today, so I guess this will have to do.

Here's What I Won't Take for Granted

Sitting beneath a moon-high summer sky,
Watching a baseball game,
Smelling the warm evening air,
Listening to the crack of a bat
And the chatter of spectators
While making my way though
A bag of peanuts, roasted and salted,
Sharing them with Ken and Rick
As they argue about all the things
You're not supposed to discuss in polite company.
From now on I will not take their
Impolite conversations for granted.

Challenge: A Poem a Day for National Poetry Month

A Poem Against the Pandemic

Will you write a poem a day?
I asked my friend the poet.
She shook her head.
What's a poem in a world like this?
I answered her with my heart.
A poem is bight hope captured
for the moment with both hands.

My Mother the Rodeo Queen and April Fools' Day

This morning a friend sent out an announcement that Governor Herbert has decreed all grades will be repeated next year. A few friends on the thread reacted in alarm but hell. I knew RIGHT AWAY that it was an April Fools' joke. Why? Because I grew up being terrorized by our mother on the first day of April. That's right. TRQ was an April Fools' Day Terrorist who switched out the sugar bowl and salt shaker, in addition to dying all our food green and putting Kibbles n' Bits in our shoes before we went to school. Dude. There were landmines everywhere in our house on April lst. I still have April Fools' PTSD.

I did get her back once, though. I called her and told her I'd just heard on the radio that a couple of Dad's players had been picked up for shoplifting. Hearing her very audible gasp was rewarding.

That's how you do it, folks. Get 'em where they're vulnerable.

I learned everything I know from a pro!

A Wish During a Season of Pandemic

. . . please send me home now,
to my beloved country. My heart yearns
to go back home.
                 --from Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey

Yes.
Please send me home
to the Before where my friends and I
met every other Wednesday
to eat bacon and eggs sunny side-up
while discussing books and films
and our mothers and that man in the White House
and knitting and bridge and travel plans
and partners and the pain
aging bodies inflict on young souls
and the joys and sadness that adult children
bring in their wake.
Please send me home to that again.
Yes.

Dawn Will Come

Telemachus, this is impossible,
for us to drive when it is pitch-black night,
however eager we may be to travel.
Dawn will come soon.
                           --from Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey

I stand in my garden
assessing the growth,
surveying the half-hidden
heads of hyacinth emerging
from the hard ground--
the slow unfurling of the
black-petaled lenten rose--
the green shoots of daffodils,
their tips bulging with
unseen yellow blossoming--
I smell rain somewhere
in distant air, its scent
both sweet and sharp,
promising a new season for me
and for my tiny piece of earth.

Depression.3

Some god who guards
and watches over you will send fair wind
behind your sails.
          from Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey

O, God, who watches over me
please send soon a fair wind
to blow away the silt and salt
that cloud my vision,
making me unable to see those
tender shoots of green in my garden
or hear the conversations of
early morning birds who roost
beneath my spring window.
I have resided too long in this port.