In the beginning, I went to France.
Joined a friend who was mourning
her brother’s death
in our favorite quiet
get-ourselves-back-together-again
place:
Le Luberon
(Knowing well our privilege)

We spent quiet beautiful days
rain or shine
wandering thru les villages perchés
of the hill country
Café lunches with friends
old and new
(Taking for granted our movements,
our moments together)

But in the soft not-quite-spring evenings
back chez nous petit chalet
behind la grande maison de votre ami
Each evening
drinking just purchased vin ordinaire
from some small local vignoble or other
We read the news
and the increasingly frantic texts
from friends and family
(Wondering if we were wise)

Until we left our private mourning time
early
to return
Return to…
(Ah, there’s the rub)
to return to the expected quarantine
and the unexpected rest of it

We left our private woe
only to join in the mass mourning
for every vestige of normal life suddenly lost
and for lives lost, more every day,
piling up
corpse upon corpse
(Like the centuries old stone walls in France
leaned upon by Ceasar’s marching legions.)

I look out the window
and watch my husband outside
build a low stone wall around our side garden
While upstairs
my mother makes more masks
And downstairs
I spend too much time
on the internet
(As if l were still a working epidemiologist)

What did I do during the pandemic?
I remembered France
I remembered America
I remembered New York
I remembered New Orleans
I remembered life
Not as now
(As then, as when)

By the rivelets from our faucets,
there we sit down, each alone
yea, we weep, when we remember our ordinary lives.

We have hung our car keys upon the mantle
And touch them not.

This virus hast carried away every vestige of normal life
And holds us captive
Each in our own homes

We are left without choir
And yet asked to sing a new harmony

Sing togetherness we are told
But stay each in your own homes
Touch no one

How shall we sing any song in this our now strange land?

If I forget thee, O Coronavirus, then my hands will be unwashed.
If I do not remember thee, then my face will be uncovered.
If I prefer not safety above my usual joys, then surely I might die.

Remember, friends, this virus
spreading across our land
This virus taking our lives, our livelihoods,
our days and our thoughts
even to the foundation thereof.

O ye Coronavirus that needs to be destroyed,
happy shall we be,
when we can hurt and destroy thee as thou hast us.

Happy shall we be, when this newest invisible terror,
perhaps the child of our own imprudence,
is dashed and broken against the stones of science.

My mother isn’t wearing her hearing aids these days.
So her TV, on the floor above me,
at the opposite end of the house,
keeps getting louder.

Hallmark I don’t mind (so much)
Although please can’t there be a leading lady
who doesn’t have a gratingly perky young voice?

CNN and MSNBC, well OK,
often a bit strident for my taste
and always on for too many hours
but liveable, ignorable
In the good ole days
of February

But now
Now when I am home, always home
Everything cancelled, no visitors
Just home
Now
There is He Whom I Never Name
Doing press conferences
(Mess conferences, I call them)
Every day
With bits and pieces replayed all day

(My mother doesn’t go to bed until midnight
And she is usually up by 8.)

She is 95, my mom, housebound right now
And I have a no visitors rule
So it is a bit much, I feel
To also ask her to turn off her TV
Her lifeline to a world
She is no longer really part of.

But then there are the dinnertime rants
Because she hates him
He Whom I Never Name
And whom she often calls Truman

(She calls Roosevelt “my president”
She was 9 years old when he was first elected
and 21 when he died.
She seems to hold Truman responsible
for his death.)

Earplugs are uncomfortable.
Spring is beautiful but hay fever
So no working outside on the deck

His voice, his voice
grates worse than Hallmark’s
perky young things.

His lies, his lies
bring more tears than spring’s
flowering trees

His rants, his rants
cause more dinnertime rants
from mom

She can no longer keep names straight
Or facts
Most of her sentences wander
And twist
Rise and fall
Never end with a period

But she crochets while she watches
And she makes face masks
Her grandchildren adore her
Her great grandchildren think
She may have known Moses

Beneath my frustrations
My social isolation
His mess conferences
Spring’s hay fever sneezes
Her dinnertime rants
Beneath those frustrations
I wonder

Will these soon be the good ole days?

The post read, “If you love America, stop criticizing the President and start praying for him.”

• Pollution is less and millions of people are out of work.
• We are told the cure could be worse than the disease.
• Don’t be afraid but don’t touch anyone.
• The beautiful quiet screams away my peace of mind.
• I love my home and can’t wait to be free of it.
• This all feels very new until I remember, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”
• We are one nation (whether or not under God), un-united.
• Mom’s grandchildren are FaceTiming with her more often and she feels more lonely.
• No one knows the troubles I’ve seen and I am very, very lucky.
• I sympathize with my father’s frustration and hate his violence.
• I have fewer obligations and more expectations.
• The media loves bad news and this is more than media hype.
• Hope is essential and false hope is fatal.
• That malaria drug has shown some effect and no effect.
• We are social distancing and we are not doing it enough.
• I love my son and I am furiously disgusted with him.
• I care more about Notre Dame burning last year than churches closing this year.
• I love writing and too often dislike what I write.
• My old woman’s body refuses to respond quickly to my young passion for my new husband.
• I criticize the President and I pray for him.

Shout Hosanna and Crucify Him.

I believe. Help thou my unbelief.

Like revenants
words
haunt me

Usually
unusual words
welcomed
for their novelty

Once
Pleonasm
shadowed my conversations
for most of a day
stopping my tongue
with its rude insinuation
that I say too much

Then there was that ghastly ghost
(Victorian, surely)
Solecism
hovering over my writing
whispering of dangling modifiers
and lapses of decorum

From the vault of the sky
Welkin
fell into my mind

Not always welcome
(Though I do rejoice
when that too solid spook
Spellcheck
fails to recognize
one of my more ephemeral phantoms)

Ah, sweet viridity
Plucky crwth
High flying hoise
Required retronyms

How I long for those innocent ghosts
daring me to let them breathe again

Now my thoughts revert
too often
to the more recently deceased

Get-together
Church
Restaurants
Date nights
Vacations
Invitations

Ah, I search for times lost
naught now but
remembrance of things past
and, mayhap,
(dare I hope)
future’s revenants?

I take his hand
Always his left hand
As together we walk
Through the door
Onto the back porch

Pausing before the sacred space

With measured tread
We walk the green aisles together

Past the welcoming incense of herbs
Rosemary, sage, parsley
Thyme, marjoram, oregano

In quiet respect
We approach the vegetables beds
Where peas congregate
Shooting skyward with silent noisiness
Potato plants break from their earth caskets
Cold crop choirs sing their lusty leaves
Candle leeks and onions light our way

With softly murmured devotion
We move through white robed azaleas
Past their crimson co-celebrants

Under the towering spruce
Second to none in reaching for God
We settle onto the small bench
Next to the arching bridge
Over the small spring that runs to the pond

In the shade of the back garden
The garden that only looks natural
But was built carefully
Reverently
With his skillful hands

Here we rest
Speaking quietly
Of Lenten roses almost gone
White and purple redbuds
Lifting their not yet leafy arms to pray
Lowly Virginia bluebells
Bowing their reverence

We walk on
Down the chipped path
Past the pond
Where juniper and violets
Dwarf hemlock and Japanese maple
Reach for the baptismal waters

Pausing to inhale the blessing
Of arched Carolina jasmine

Past the witch hazels
Renowned wound soothers
Bright primroses
Upright peony acolytes
Solomon’s seal
Grace our worshipful journey

Sweet succulents welcome us back
To the shelter of our porch
To the door back inside

Re/freshed and re/healed
Ritual re/newed
We re/enter quarantine.

Chalked hands roped waist helmeted head
Clear day long drive steep scramble rough rock
Careful necessaries impatient wait eager dread dreadful joy

On belay
Climbing
Cracks and crevasses
Bumps and lumps
Three point contact

Lean back
+++ Away from the seeming security of the rock face
No real safety in hugging close

Safety only in separation

Lean out
+++Over the void
Trusting – am I mad?
+++In small finger holds, tiny toe grips

Lean out
+++ Look up
Search the next move
+++ Depend on life knowledge skill
+++ Dare death
+++ To drop me

Halfway up
+++ Suspended between here and now
Tethered alone
+++ Face to the rock back to the void
Heart beats hard against gray ribs

My shirt is wet
+++ So are my panties
Hard rock quiet under my finding fingers
+++ Sweet butter pulse in my grasping groin
The rhythm of my fingers
+++ Steadies upward for my hard hold
The pulse of my groin
+++ Surges upward for my waking womb

I lean out
+++ Strong and sure
+++ Suspended by fingertips
Over the void
+++ Laughing
+++ Confident
+++ Terrified
Turned on