A poem in the midst of a pandemic…
All People Visited Upon
The squish
beneath my bare feet
as I pad down
the stairs in the dark of
Sunday morning.
Light reveals
the spatter and spray of
cat vomit.
A reassuring reminder,
like the comforting aroma
of coffee wafting from
my silent kitchen,
that
some things
are eternal.
Some things are
unchanged by thirteen days
of Shelter-in-Place, by
the ticker count of the death toll,
scrolling next to the stock market
arrows, marking an
abhorrent nexus designed
to stoke fear.
Am I changed?
With routines interrupted, and
my senses heightened by
diminished noise, I hear
pre-dawn owls hooting,
eerily loud. Have they
gotten closer,
or bolder?
Pear blossoms scream,
their white froth and their cloying scent,
nearly committing an assault.
A startling shift from their
common backdrop,
as a seasonal prop for the entrance
of spring.
The impossible weight
of the bumblebees, their
black velvet mass pushing off,
from yellow mustard, to the
blindingly bright orange poppies, swollen
with pollen and heavy
with hope.
The air is imbued with
eucalyptus and pine, leaving a
stringent taste in my mouth,
as I walk through
desolate streets, toward
the harbor and its pulsing
rise and fall of boats.
Their riggings singing a hushed lullaby,
nestled in the cradle of a gentle tide.
The ever-present cold
of Northern California sea water,
my ankles numbed by the
ease of the caressing waves and
bubbling sand.
The rhythmic briny swirl
inviting me to join with
slow time.
Have ‘all people been visited upon’ by this
sensuous pandemic, this emergence of
heightened awareness?
Has everyone been infected
with the remembered sense
of interconnection?
Has the quiver of knowing, that
patiently waits
to be awakened in the depths of
human consciousness,
touched off a cascade of symptoms?
Am I alone?
Or have others experienced the
grace of simple joys.
Has the painful surge of gratitude,
spread to every town?
Have you felt
the gift of deep presence,
that surrounds the task of
caressing warm
cat hack at dawn?
Debra Gerardi
(c) March 29, 2020
Half Moon Bay, CA