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