Marjorie Moorhead
Two Poems
Coronavirus Diary III
3/20/2020
It’s not as though life is perfect
and everything is shining and smooth.
No, there’s a lot I’m unsatisfied with.
Many cluttered things, undone, in dust.
So why is there this precious feeling
like an ache in my heart
when the birds sing?
They sing, and fly together,
in the breeze
and the branches
and my heart cracks open
like the ice cliffs calving.
And the thought that life may end
is an unbearable thing.
Coronavirus Diary IV
3/23/2020
The odor of yeast bubbling
in warm honey sweetness
as my husband starts his bread.
It sits in a large ceramic bowl, covered
with damp thin cotton tea-towel,
waiting to get punched down
at the appropriate time.
Meanwhile, we do our qigong exercises
in front of the desk-top, as a white clad
practitioner we have stored in the cloud
does his slow moves with names tagging
crane, lion, bear. “Expand the chest
to cleanse the body.” Eagle spreads its wings
and bear swims across the water.
Our son, sequestered in a bedroom
of his childhood, has been robbed
of the experience, new for him last fall,
of being on a college campus, learning
about life, with his peers.
Instead, they must practice “social distancing,”
and attend “virtual leaning” classes
on Zoom.
—Submitted on
Marjorie Moorhead is the author of Survival: Trees, Tides, Song (Finishing Line Press, 2019) and Survival Part 2: Trees, Birds, Ocean, Bees (Duck Lake Books, 2020). Recent poems have appeared in Verse-Virtual, Amethyst Journal, and Sheila-Na-Gig, among other journals. Her poems have also appeared in several anthologies, including Planet in Peril (Fly on the Wall, 2019), edited by Isabelle Kenyon, and From The Ashes (Animal Heart, 2019), edited by Amanda McLeod and Mela Blust. Moorhead practices tai chi, a daily walk, and poetry on the NH/VT border.
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