15.4.25

Current reading, pandemic poetry edition

Mónica de la Torre, Pause the Document

An attempt, not always successful, to capture some of the feeling of 2020 and 2021. Some of my 2020 and 2021:

1. Spring is tricky here: it can be below freezing into April, it can hit 80° and stay there in March. In 2020 and 2021 we had long, cool, wet springs that lasted until May. Being able to be outside meant everything.

2. I took the dog for a walk one day in early 2020 and realized I knew where everyone in my neighborhood was, a thing otherwise impossible: they were all at home, just like me.

3. In March of 2020 either right before or right after everything shut down I was taking a walk in the middle of the day and ran across another person, going the other way, who was praying aloud in a clear but not shouting voice for the protection of everyone in our neighborhood. I am not one for ostentatious public displays of religion (pray to your father in secret etc etc), but I don't know that I have ever been more grateful for a stranger to pray for me.

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