the poem I'm trying to write 
is about the trauma we're all feeling

I can't listen to music now 
its beauty would spoil the poem 
just the words and thoughts 
nothing else 
just the poem I'm trying to write

it's like an awakening 
seeing everything the way it really is
so fragile
safety security and nursery rhymes
shredded

it's not funny but I'm smiling
I've been here before
so many deaths

mine and all the others

battlefields carpeted with lost hopes
close streets with death oozing from every door
carts piled high
cars twirling in a river flowing away from the sea

I've been here before
my ghost has been here before

and now it's happening again
everywhere all across the planet all at once
and I'm trying to write about the beginning

the shock
not being able to not see

the virus an eloquent intelligence test
a pitiless sieve for pretension greed and illusion

and I'm thinking about the numbness
how we're each trying to hide
the trauma we're all feeling

and this is just the beginning

the virus has something to say
about who we really are

and now we have to listen

Thomaston, July 11

© 2020  Bill Eberle