“Holiday-Lights-#2” © Bonnie Matthews Brock

 

poets and covid-19

everyone
well, at least it seems that way
is writing about it
this year-long winter
no doubt even longer
even if this is a knee-jerk
the silence and cold of winter
must have its say
until words and the cold of winter
teach us
what we need to know

 

my religious community prays

their names written in our prayer book
chapel side as we enter
their names among other names
a relative a friend
hospital home positive
quarantine recovering
died last night
of course, we know
alone
but not without us

 

the never-ending journey: life after covid-19

the river mirrors the sky
each with a silence echoing the other
the river moves on its own
in its own path
somewhere to somewhere
the sky also sustains the journey of galaxies
as they dance in its graceful breathing
but we are more restless than the stars
that glisten the darkness. . .
restlessness such saving grace
that pulls pushes us into tomorrow
and tomorrow’s tomorrow
restless we will leave our bleak caves
we will journey as other cave dwellers once journeyed
watching the stars
and like the river
moving somewhere to somewhere

 

Sister Lou Ella Hickman’s poems and articles have appeared in numerous magazines and journals as well as four anthologies. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020. Her first book of poetry entitled she: robed and wordless was published in 2015.

Bonnie Matthews Brock is a Florida-based photographer, as well as a school psychologist. Her images have been published in Ibbetson Street Press, The Somerville Times, Oddball Magazine, and Beyond Words Literary Magazine.