2020: a poem by marilyn LT klimcho.

 

Covid-19

(For context, this poem was written on March 13, 2020.)

A newly deconstructed tree,
Stacked in my neighbor’s yard
Provides safe harbor
For a flock of sparrows
Sheltering momentarily
Inside the pile of familiar
Limbs gone awry, as if
These sawed branches
Are a new form
Trees have adopted
In response to the age of
Patio fire pits.
The sparrows twitter and flit,
Performing an examination
Of interstices and unnatural
Intersections between
Trunk and branches.
Sparrows are brown and
Ordinary, as ordinary
As you and I, looking
At the breakdown
Covid-19 has created
As we respond to
Spreading infection.
The wider world’s problems
Have found us and the
Unnatural quiet on the
School yards, in the stadiums,
And theaters is evidence
Of that. We flit, furtive,
Through our deconstructed
World, looking at the
Gaping holes, but looking
Also for the connections
That aren’t sawed through.
We sparrows chatter loudly,
Startle easily, react rapidly
Fly off in a new direction.
We are a nervous flock.

Marilyn Klimcho is the author of poems and short stories that have appeared in The Schuylkill Valley Journal, Birdsong, Coast to Coast: The Route 20 Anthology and others. Her award-winning work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.