A trio of poems to capture the crisis
Elise Osenga lives and works on the Western Slope for an earth science nonprofit. She considers herself lucky this year but has felt the impacts of the pandemic through friends, family, and her community.
After offering to write a poem for anyone that might need one, Elise wrote a trio of poems to capture the crisis.
“Grief, humor, and hope. I wrote these poems for her.”
Elise Osenga
“Awaiting”—A Reflection on Covid in 3 short parts
Grief
They say what we're feeling
may be grief,
but it's more complex than that,
as we hold with dry hands
the shattered fragments of our society,
trying to avoid getting cut on the edges,
wondering bitterly how we broke.
We turn it this way and that,
doing our best to draw attention
to the rainbows of light thrown out by this mess,
but there's no denying
this is not the hero's story we were hoping for,
this is not the cataclysm for which we asked.
Humor
Remind me, next time we cross paths
not to eat all the rum balls
in a day and a half.
But what else could I do,
sitting by my temptations at 10 am?
I thought I'd expend my time unspent in driving
in healthful enterprise--
Instead I've been sleeping in and blaming
a schedule upended,
for my apathy toward exercise.
And when I reflect,
perhaps I ought to be filled with regret,
but there is no room,
between the butter, the flour,
the chocolate, sprinkles, and rum.
Moving Forward
There are some species of plants that thrive
in the wake of disruption,
clothing the upheaved soil
in tendrils and shoots,
sometimes small flowers of regrowth,
As we survey this newly unfamiliar landscape--
once the shakings have subsided
and the fires burned down,
Let us choose with care
the seeds
with which we seek regeneration.