The kids say I make ordinary things fun
Like straddling baby and dropping tiny socks
On her belly to distract and calm her down
Which is a lot of help during the virus
Because she’s not calm a lot of the time and neither are we
Though we cover up and try to be
So when I can, I lie on the floor
As I’m doing now and I meditate
And pray, whatever those things are, and more
Anything to help us through this hour, this day
Even this writing, sometimes a help, sometimes a bore
Once in a while good medicine for the grief galore
That grips us with such a long arm, you see
I’m just waiting and waiting for some socks to drop on me.
Pandemic Phone Etiquette
How quickly we forget each other
Even in the best of times
So thank you, pandemic, for how you remind
Us who we will miss the most
And thank you, virus,
For reminding others they too miss us
For making everyone ponder and even reply
To “You wouldn’t care if I live or die”
So I call you and you call me
Just to say hello, just to see
It really is more as if to say
“I’m so glad Covid has not swept you away”
I’m so so glad you are still here
Never mind we’ve not seen each other
Or even talked for what is it —- half the year?
So I call Mark and Jim calls me
And on the road soon we both would be
To pull up the chairs, to sit on the lawn
No matter we must wait till the plague is gone.
I used to think way back when I thought myself smart
That to love and even friendship there’s a kind of art
And I posed this question to myself:
A friend you haven’t seen in years but is still alive
And a friend of similar “value” who has died — —
What’s the difference philosophically between the two
In memory and in mind and what is one to do?
Is it just the possibility that in case of one
You could make contact and in the other none?
Never mind, now I don’t think such thoughts
Now it seems better just to act
To email, or text, or better yet I’ll phone
“Hello, Frances,” I say cheerily, “Hello, Paul
Death has reminded me to give you a call
So nice to hear your voice, so nice we’re not alone”
And when the conversation stutters and starts
When there’s nothing much left to report
And that, awkward silence invades the call
And we’re once again in the Covid thrall
When the other finally murmurs, “You there … a …hem?”
My answer is now, simply, gloriously, “Yes, I’m OK. I am.”