Audio: “Invictus” recited by Morgan Freeman
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
Leslie Anne Mcilroy: Zoosk | The Pandemic
We stay put, apart,
constant in longing. And that is all
fine, my friends, except the dying
part. Death all around love’s
little sprouting head.
Suzanne Kusserow: Small Joys from an Old Woman In Quarantine
I have lived long enough at 88 to know isolation, to accept it and find its pockets of beauty through my window. Fatalism becomes a form of serenity.
Ben Martin: COVID-19 and Philip Roth’s Nemesis
The practice of medicine demands answers, yet to practice medicine in the United States is an invitation […] to be swallowed by suffering that eludes meaning.
Danusha Laméris: Small Kindnesses
For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now.
Nicholas Johnson: A Seattle doctor on the frontlines
My first question every time I see a new patient now is: ‘Could this be COVID-19?’
Robert Walicki: Storm
It’s 40 degrees, and windy enough to lift us
off the edge of the earth, and this hospital roof,
where we drop the heads of metal snakes down stacks,
next to exhaust vents carrying the breath of the dying
Tom Engelhardt: In Memoriam | A Planet of Missing Beauties
For those I’ll be leaving behind, my children and grandchildren in particular, this just wasn’t the world I ever wanted them to inherit.
Deena November: Social Distance Pro
I create ambitious color coded schedules for
my hyper children during a pandemic but they are jumping in puddles, tracking mud all over the house and eating popcorn off the living room rug.
Jill Richardson: We are all in this together
Why we can’t be okay with other people bearing the brunt of a pandemic or recession.
Corona's Jaws: An Anthology of Poetry
Poems by Cynthia Atkins, Jose Alcantara, Judith Alexander Brice, Michael T. Young, Sydney Lea, Charlie Brice, John Samuel Tieman, and Adrian Rice.
Christine Rhein: Panic
Because it’s too late now
to sound the alarm
over the lack of alarm,
over the sudden
wealth of it.
Arie Kruglanski: 3 ways the coronavirus pandemic is changing who we are
The stressful external forces this pandemic unleashed are exerting a deep internal effect. Little by little, they are changing who we are and how we relate to people and the world.
Ellen McGrath Smith: March 22, 2020
As it is, we’re quarantined in cages,
rooms, apartments, city houses, ranches
in the suburbs, the further out you go
the more chance to forget, to forgo
every caution you’ve ever not taken.
Paul Christensen: Timbrels in the Marsh
The sky is a stoic blue, hard as a marble, with little wimpy clouds that carry nothing more than a few regrets from a dying winter. We’re here, right on the precipice of a season.
