Tag: Covid

Hope for Christmas 2021

‘Twas three weeks before Christmas and all through the towns.

People wore masks that covered their frowns.

The frowns had begun back in 2020 Spring,

When a global pandemic changed everything.

They called it Corona but unlike the beer,

It didn’t bring good times; it didn’t bring cheer.

 

Airplanes were grounded, travel was banned.

Borders were closed across air, sea, and land.

As the world entered lockdown, flattening Covid’s curve,

The economy caved, and folks lost their nerve.

Through spring 2020, we rode the first wave.

People stayed home and tried to behave.

When summer emerged, the lockdown was lifted.

But away from sanity, many folks had drifted.

Now it’s December 2021, and cases are spiking.

Omicron has arrived, much to our disliking.

The last two years have brought sadness aplenty.

We’ll never forget the year 2020.

 

Now we’re nearing another holiday season.

But why be merry? Is there even one reason?

To decorate the house and put up the tree?

Who will see it?  Maybe no one but me.

But outside our window, the rain gently falls

And I think to myself, “Let’s deck the halls!”

So, I gather red ribbons, garlands, and bows.

As I play those old carols, my happiness grows,

Christmas is not canceled and neither is hope,

If we lean on each other, I know we can cope!

Tent Weeds

Tent Weeds

Monday, September 28, 2020

The rabbit-full coyote lazes in the bushes under a brown Cleveland sky where the clouds wear polka dot ties and green belts under a rainbow man that has soot on his sleeve coming from crumbling chimneys where the old mill used to make tires that rarely roll on these less-traveled-by roads.

A used-to-be-cute little girl in a ragged red dress and pasty-pink pinafore sucks at selling bedraggled bouquets to penniless people for a dime. They save their pennies to buy a bouquet for loved ones who have lost their lives to the tiny spiky Covid marauder — a remorseless, pitiless taker.

The girl’s dead plants smell dry: bound in the round with bits of straw found under chicks on ol’ Tate’s land where tents have popped up like weeds. No work. No jobs. No homes. This child lives where the tent weeds grow. More come. More go. Her mom and dad help her tie that which they think might sell to those still well.

It’s hell.