As you read this I will be at a sort of Consciousness Conference in Maui. That means I won’t have had my usual writing time available. Instead, I decided I would allow for a little interlude and share some of the poetry that emerged from journaling during the pandemic. At the time Covid-19 emerged on the scene, my family was living in Hong Kong. Essentially that meant we were experiencing the impact of Covid-19 on daily life a few months prior to our fellow Americans in the USA.
As you read or listen to the poems, be mindful of the dates. In those early weeks and months everything was changing so quickly, wasn’t it? One day stores would have toilet paper and the next day they wouldn’t. One day children were in school, the next day they weren’t. We were called to adapt to new conditions quickly! And there was such fear of the Unknown - so much to navigate. So much to THINK ABOUT. For me the pandemic served as a sort of awakening, or at least as a component of an awakening already in progress.
By sharing these poems, perhaps we can get a bit of perspective on how “far we have come” in a myriad of ways, from the science of understanding and treating various versions of the Coronavirus to how we have viewed one another, our planet, and ourselves.
May this little interlude prompt a bit of reflection and insight for you.
-Brenda
Listen to this poem.
Feb. 14, 2020
Thoughts on Confinement and Coronavirus
It sucks.
We all feel it, an unseen heaviness.
The uncertainty of shifting paradigms
The weight of the what nexts, what nows, what ifs.
The gloom and doom just beyond the border.
Even on Valentine’s Day, even after and during an amazing dinner
At MEATS last night, even at the very moment
You smile or laugh or look your loved one in the eye lovingly -
Even THEN, something like lead in your belly, lurks beneath
Waiting for its moment to arise and say,
“The horror! The horror!”
This virus is coming, is here, and will also go.
People will become infected, recover or die, or not.
Some - many - even most - may never contract the disease,
Yet it insidiously makes it presence known
Each and every moment.
Now.
AND now.
And now.
Now, when I read a book
It’s there.
Now, when I sip a tea
It’s there.
Now, when I read the news and the latest numbers:
65,000 cases, 1486 deaths, 5954 recovered.
It’s there.
Now, when I write and revise lesson plans for Junior English
It’s there.
I don’t really have anywhere to go,
But not being able to freely go anywhere
Confines me.
Keeping others off the campus
Confines me.
Putting students in a Zoom room
Confines them.
We are distanced.
Not hugging, not shaking hands,
covering our faces with masks separates
us while creating a longing for unity.
We are a yolk separated from its white.
We have entered
Journal of the Plague Year
Or Brave New World
Or Contagion -
It sucks.
Listen to this poem.
Feb. 18, 2020
Empty Humanities Office
It’s lonely in here
25 desks and dividers
24 people missing,
Their scarves, coffee cups, books, papers
Neat or scattered like errant bones
In an old cemetery.
Like the young gallant rebel in Les Mis
Singing “Empty Chairs and Empty Tables”
I sit alone.
The usual gossip quelled by coronavirus’
Fear-inducing six-week virtual learning quarantine.
The sole survivor I.
No. The sole resident seated on an orange 70’s couch
(it really needs to go).
It’s the quiet that is disquieting.
Not the quiet of a Polish ghetto after deportation
But of a room after a delightful party
with tinkling crystal stems and cheery laughter.
That kind of quiet.
What is left then?
Dirty dishes suggesting lively conversation
Crumbs whispering of lucious indulgence
That is the silence speaking now
Telling its sad truth. . .
Listen to this poem.
March 14, 2020
Ode to a Virus
Oh Covid-19, you sneaky shit with an invisibility cloak.
You sneak around shaking hands without permission
Frightening grown men and women
Shutting down industry and commerce.
So powerful you are.
Are you of God or the Devil?
Or are you of our own creation?
Are you waking us up or putting us down like an old dog?
When will you sleep - at least rest?
What will become of us in your presence?
Will the angels of our better natures rise like
spirited mist to bring in a new age?
Will we sing Age of Aquarius with love in our hearts
Or flee in fear because of your name?
Is your Mother - Earth herself- at wits end with us humans?
Is that it?
“Fun and games are over everyone;
It’s time to get down to business.”
Listen to this poem.
March 27, 2020
Covid-19
HK 453 cases/4 deaths
US 80,000 cases/1147 deaths
Italy 80,000 cases/8165 deaths
Worldwide 500,000 cases; 108,385 recovered
Tidal Wave
Your arrival took us by surprise.
Wuhan Virus.
Novel Coronavirus.
SARS Cov2
Covid-19
“Wu Flu”
“Chinese Virus”
“Kung Flu”
Your stealthy, invisible Shiva - the Destroyer - nature.
Coming.
Your waves heighten far in the distance, unseen.
We splash and play and laugh unaware.
You arrive, recede, arrive again
A forty-foot tidal way.
Our toy boats and sandcastle houses
Ken and Barbie Selves wash away.
Wave.
Wave.
Wave.
Lap.
Lap.
Lap.
What remains?
What returns?
What begins again?
Listen to this poem.
March 28, 2020
Covid-19 raging worldwide
The Grand Pause
Birds of early morning call urgently across the jungle below.
I on the balcony listen to their calls and replies.
Nothing else matters.
No paper marking on my mind.
No grocery shopping or haircuts or dentist appointments.
Just the breath
In and out
Right now.
Here -
In and out.
Here -
All of humanity is paused
Listening
Breathing
Anticipating
Wondering
Fearing or
Loving
We are inside a moment without time.
Listen to this poem.
April 10, 2020, Hong Kong
Coronavirus says. . .
Slow down.
No, really. Slow down.
Don’t you know how to slow down?
You stop. You literally stop go go going.
You don’t work from 7:30 - 4:30.
You work from 8 - 3:30.
You don’t run off to the city three times a week or more.
You go for an afternoon walk.
You don’t eat out.
You make bread yourself.
You sit on the balcony, nap, read, chat with friends online.
No packing for a trip here then there then there then there,
Sit still! Slow. Down.
Listen to this poem.
May 6, 2020
“The Sky is Falling! The sky is falling!”
“The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”
The alarm sounds.
People scatter in fear.
Run. Hide. Anticipate the end.
“The sky is Falling! The sky is falling!”
Is it? Is it for me at this very moment in time?
Well. . . no.
At this very moment I am well, safe, secure,
Sitting at Starbucks
Writing a poem in aircon
Breakfast in belly
Having had a good walk
Looking out the window
At beautiful blue water and clear skies of
Low hanging clouds
Listening to lounge music
snatching some time to myself
Calm and relaxed.
“The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”
Is it? Is it for them at this very moment in time?
Well. . . no.
They are sheltering in place at home
Employed or maybe
Unemployed or furloughed
Sick or well
Sleeping or waking
Sitting or standing
Breathing well or labored
Or with assistance
Saving a life or saying goodbye
Teaching a child or reading a book
Speaking with patience or frustration
Online or in line
Full or hungry
Here or there or nearly there
Allowing or resisting
Imagining or creating
Opening or stuck shut
Laughing or crying
Loved.
Listen to this poem.
September 19, 2020
Dear Covid,
Dear
Wuhan virus
Novel coronavirus
Coronavirus
SARS Cov-2
Covid-19
“Kung flu”
“Wu flu”
Torturer
Murderer,
You invisible, intangible, undeniable, terrorizing Shit,
How have you managed to upend every institution and system we know?
Tourism
Industry
Medical industry
Entertainment
Music
Sports
Education
Religion
Family
Work
Daily life
Civil order. . .
We can’t even see you.
Some of us are afflicted without feeling you.
Some can’t stop experiencing your wrath.
You rave, rage, ravage, suffocate,
Infect by the millions
Kill by the hundreds of thousands.
We hide behind masks or
Politics pumping our sanitized fists in the air helplessly crying,
“When will there be a vaccine?”
“When will it go away?”
“When can we get back to normal?”
Nine months. Count them
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine months of this uncertain-unsettling-menacing-disruptive-destructive-time-without-time
Time.
I hate it.
I hate you.
I hate you for making me hate - anything.
I hate you for changing my world.
I hate you for making me see my world differently.
Wait! That’s not true.
Okay, I’m okay with that.
That ONE thing.
I don’t mind you waking me up.
Oh, and for making me slow down.
I like that, too.
And appreciating things and people more.
I do like that I have so much more appreciation for my friends and family
And for my job.
I’m definitely thankful for my employment.
And I guess it’s okay that we are all realizing our flaws -
Like how completely we had mistreated one another and our planet, and all.
(I love the clear, blue skies so much that I can barely stand it.)
Oh, and my family, did I say I love my family; I mean I truly understand now how much I love my family, and everyone, really; I love everyone; and everything; I love this WORLD; I love life!
I see that now.
I might even say a word of gratitude to you, Covid-19, but rest assured. . .
You still suck!
Brenda
Listen to this poem.
circa Sept. 2020
3-Dimensional
Upon the returning of students to HKIS
Come in!
Welcome. Welcome!
I’m so happy to see you, really SEE you.
You know until this moment you have only been a 2-dimensional,
2x2 inch square on my screen.
And that’s if you are lucky.
Sometimes you were out of view altogether
Or backlit and silhouetted
Or maybe just a forehead
Or a chin.
You know, I wasn’t really quite sure if you had a body at all.
You were a distant, disembodied, disassembled, deconstructed
Entity in cyberspace
void of your full humanity.
Voiceless. You were voiceless.
Sometimes that was my choice - sometimes yours.
We were both to blame.
That horrible mute button snatched your laughter,
Creating an echo chamber that was only
Me, me, me.
But you are HERE now-
A 3-dimensional, person in the flesh
With all your body parts and a voice, too.
Imagine what we can do
now that we have emerged from the ethers to embody fully
as blood and bones, eyes and ears, vocal cords and hands and feet.
You can move!
I can move!
What joy to move
to this dance of 3-dimensional
Life!
(Written during Covid-19 after school had been online for some months)
Listen to this poem.
December 2020
Dear Covid,
You took away my peeps again.
Silence pervades the space in Starbucks
Like an astronaut untethered and floating to his demise.
Newly minted Christmas cheer sticks flung against the
Windows like road runner’s coyote against a faux-mountain.
The grinning snowman grimaces frozen in pain.
You did this.
See your devastation?
I hope you are proud of yourself.
Today my lovely, lively students will again become wooden
Two-inch by two-inch blocks stacked geometrically on a screen
Unable to reach out into the third dimension-Into life.
There they will sit, imprisoned in their cube, void of touch or
Stereo-sound, melting into zeroes and ones.
You did this.
Are you happy?
Only a few know how to penetrate this stillness of the box,
Kiki with her jingling “hello, how are you?”
Yaerin, who’s twinkling eyes have discovered how to reach
Beyond the void of cyberspace like a far planet shining.
Most, like Thea, will retreat to the shadow of their backlit space,
Or like Robert and Leo will transform into all hoody and no face.
You did this.
What’s your point anyway?
You, you took away my peeps.
I hope you are proud of yourself.
Brenda
Listen to this poem.
Three Poems from Aug. 12, 2021
Dear Covid,
It’s not easy for a planet to change.
We earthlings are stubborn.
We pet our fear like it’s a beloved cat.
We revel in its purring.
We don’t realize we are already living in the Upsidedown.
How long must we be ravaged by you and your many cousins before we begin to live in Truth again?
How long until until our collective consciousness breathes
“God is. God is. God is.”
Dear Covid,
You are hated and despised,
likely would be crucified
If we could do it.
But do you also bear our sins
To the light to be seen
Known anew
Forgiven?
Dear Covid,
Have we conjured our fear into a spiky virus
Then hanged it on a cross?
What is our lesson?
Please reveal it.
Let it bloom as a lotus
Fragrant and open
Rising from the muck.
Dear Covid,
Teach us.
Perhaps certain poems resonate with you or conjure memories or certain feelings related to our shared experience of the pandemic. If so, please leave a comment! Let me know what came to mind or which poem spoke the loudest to you. What have we learned? Please share your perspective.
You can find all of my series in the archives:
Adulting 101 Coupons: A Gift from your Parents
Partnering 101: A Deep Dive into Leaving Kindly
Me-Time: Self-care in the time of Covid
Reasons for Hope
From Fog to Flow
With a Grateful Heart
Lessons in Life School
Life Cheat Sheets
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Writer. Gong Player. Teacher.
Find more of my writing at GreenBaytoKorea.blogspot.com
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All photos by © Brenda Brayko 2023 unless otherwise credited.
All poems are original and © copyrighted by Brenda Brayko 2023