Dear Readers,
This week is almost over! On Monday, week 9 of the challenge will start! Today I want to share a few interesting poems about Quarantine.
Caring in quarantine
after Ada Limon and Rigoberto Gonzalez
It hasn’t struck you yet, but it will.
i’ve never really been a
“rip the bandaid off” type of girl
i’d rather let it
sink in first,
soak and saturate
The day misspent, the love misplaced.
oh great, my screen time report is out again
songs playing on repeat...
“I care for myself the way I used to care about you”
i take notes.
Why must we practice this surrender?
though i guess it wasn’t necessary
just another choice that i have no control over
that the rest of us have to live—rather, die—with
or at least bite our nails about
No more than a part of the darkness
biting nails and stress balls never really did it for me though
i like to sprint.
the wind in my ears,
deafening the noise of my own thoughts
– Anna Sperger ’21
Another word for father is worry.
after Li-Young Lee
For me, life in the quarantine has been somewhat normal. I wake up, I go to “the nest” as I call my spot on the couch in the den where I study on weekdays and lounge on weekends, and then I sit there until it’s bedtime. Obviously there are some small breaks, but anyone in my house would attest to the fact that I probably spend 90% of my life here.
My father lives a very different life right now, and “worried” barley begins to describe it. God, I have so much respect for what he does, even if I don’t respect the things he tells me to do. He carries the weight of the whole pandemic on his shoulders. He was the one who put his foot down and made us stay home. He made himself and my mother shower every day in our basement, and leave their clothes in the basement contamination area before padding upstairs in a tower. He even went as far as barring us from using the communal bathroom downstairs, restricting everyone to only use the toilet in their room. But he does it all out of love and worry. He has not hugged me for about a month, and it’s usually the first thing he does when he gets home from work every day. I am healthy and young, and I am at such low risk, but this man Worries So Much.
And he won’t sit back and just make our house safe either. He wants to save the world. The first week of lockdown he sat silently at dinner, as the cogs and gears of his brain turned. This man personally made a plan to maneuver patients in hospital settings to provide care for Cvid patients. He then emailed at least half a dozen contacts who have clout in the medical government, to tell them how he believes they could help to avert this crisis, and when I asked him if he would be on the news he said “I hope I’m not.” He did this because he Worries and he cares.
And he still goes to work most days, saving more lives. And he still takes his online business school course that he takes for no other reason that he wants to more effectively run the practice he is already in charge of
And he still helped me proofread my summer program applications.
And he still participates in family games and movies.
And he still cut me up a pear and delivered it to the nest, where I sit and play “Animal Crossing.”
– Max Newman ’21
Hope you liked reading these poems!
~ Golden Ink
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