Tag: covid poetry
May Day Mayday
How may we labour
To save ourselves?
Shall we gather about us
Bulwarks of uncertainty
To guard us from future
Arrogance? Shall we collect
Images of unaccommodated mankind
That we may be protected
From fears of ennui, enclosed
In our own four walls. Will
The memory of mountains
Not seen in decades ensure
Our survival as a species?
For myself, I call forth
The blazing amaltas that
Flame the streets of my city
That their fire consume the
Distance between us, and
Refine my relief to pity.
Now that our masks have revealed us
How curious, this motley masquerade
To sashay forth in some carnival’s
Parade as if the gold and dazzle and points
Of lace could present to the crowds some
Other soul, an alien head, a faerie face.
What deception is left to practice now
When we hide ourselves from neighbours
And friends. Will we know each other, when
This ends, or shall we hear each stranger ask
Who are you now, without your mask?
A Table of Contents
I hadn’t seen the house. He hadn’t seen
The table. We were buying momentous
Things for a future in which we’d never
Been. “Bigger,” he said, “tell them to make it
Wider and longer!” “Where will we place it?”
I said, looking at the dimensions he’d sent us.
But the size of a table depends on more than
How many sit. My parents knew – if you
Build it they will come. And we did. Their
Table held more than ever lived in that
House. There was always room, food,
Conversation. And now we live in self-
Isolation. And the too-big table draws
Together our meagre four – with our
Violins, our laptops, our books, tools, papers
Our cat, puzzles, painting projects – more,
In fact, a binding and gathering of ourselves
To ourselves, a tabling of a core.
‘Not by eastern windows only’
I read it first when I was twelve,
A poem my father remembered from
His early days in school. I’m not sure
What he was thinking but we spoke of it
Often over the years. Battles waged and lost
Wars that ended in tears, hope was always
The prize. Because the quality of light
Perhaps, is also twice blest, touching
Those who are beaten and those who wield
The batons of power with the same
Vision of unrest. Every woman sitting
Through the night, every student braving
Authority’s might, every migrant
Shouting against the roar, every
Citizen courting arrest – they know
Why they fight, they know what this
Is for, they know why they persist. Hope
Is the only reward of all those who resist.
For Ashley, Aswathy, and all those sending food to the unhoused on the long road home
You can tell you’re home because they feed you.
Bowls and platters filled in love fried and sautéed and
Curried by hand each spice and grain and leaf
Chosen with care because you’re home and they need you
To know how good it is to have you in the circle
Of their arms, out of harms way. You could say
That this recent splurge of breads and cakes
Exotic recipes, tender meats, and aromatic
Bakes is a circling of arms about ourselves,
A reaching up into neglected cupboards to
Shake a little love from tins on our shelves. Such
A strange thing, food. Hastily wrapped
Meals, made by strangers for nameless strangers
Trapped between the leaving and the returning
So many unhoused each one unknown. Such a
Strange thing, food, delivered in packets,
Hundreds at a time, carrying the promise of home.
Please state the nature of the medical emergency
I am afraid I will die.
Really? Here in your lovely
Voluntary exile, hibernating with
Your plants and your music and your
Elegant lounging style?
I am afraid to die. Aren’t
We all this is hardly
An emergency. I am afraid to live.
When everyone has died. Seriously
Too many bad movies is hardly cause
To summon the emergency medical
Hologram please state the
I am afraid to live as if everyone is dead.
There was that so hard? Why not just
Say so? Instead we have all this
Bleating about dolphins returning and
The new blue of the skies – true, some
Of it, but mostly photoshop and lies
I’m also afraid – oh there’s more? Where
Does it hurt I’m sure there’s a cure – that
I’m relieved to not be able you see there
Is news of thousands walking beaten
Stuffed into boxes and starving and I
Unable my hands are tied I’m self
Isolated you see couldn’t help if I
Tried but my fear is not a symptom it’s
Really my relief I’m afraid to have to
Add conviction to belief. There. Lie down.
What you’re experiencing is grief. For all
That has died around you and all
You will kill there’s not much
I can do but I will
Say this: as much as you may say that
You want this to end, get back to your
Work, meet a real friend – grief will always
Urge you to pretend that
You got this you can do this everything’s
On the mend. This shall pass too.
So lie down. Things will
Die down. As death tends to do.
Giti Chandra 