The coronavirus pandemic has led our world down a dark road — and the United States in particular has made innumerable mistakes in tackling this problem. Thankfully, this year’s National Poetry Month put everything into perspective. Writers shared their coronavirus-inspired poetry to shed light on the struggles of everyday people around the country. Some end with tears, while others end with giggles.
My Corona was written by Sally Morgan:
The coronavirus looks like a dog toy
or a child’s Koosh ball
with its primary color
and fanciful shape.
How can something so whimsical
be so insidious?
It hasn’t infected me, mind you,
but it has changed me —
morphed into an
odd, complex chimera.
I’ve grown antennae that detect
a six foot field around me.
I’ve developed a fly’s eyes
to see danger on surfaces.
Like a squirrel, I bury food
in nooks and crannies
for a distant time.
I don a carapace
to venture out —
which I shed like a
snakeskin
on return to my door.
I am Lady Macbeth at the sink.
The future keeps receding.
Certainty has collapsed.
Sometimes I am like
the bear,
lumbering out of hibernation —
but mostly, I am like
the ground hog,
waiting
still waiting
to see her
Shadow.
Here are a couple stanzas from A Viral Composition written by Renata Starbird:
It all seems so simple, yet wonderfully cunning
that we should be haunted by creatures so stunning.
Not a prokaryote nor is it eukaryotic,
some close to home, others much more exotic.
As we go ’round the globe in our planes, trains, and cars,
as we chop down the trees to make room for our yards,
as we drill deep into earth and pave roads in the mountains,
viral dark matters inch closer by thousands.
These poems elicit our emotions about the new world in which we live through a novel lens — and we should all strive to take a second glance and reevaluate. Looking for more? A quick look online will feed your appetite.