Eden In Lockdown: A Poem

So already, with novel coronavirus running the show, I was inspired yesterday morning to write a poem, but not a novel. It's my general practice to sit with poems awhile before soliciting response and critique, but since this one is so much about this present moment, I've decided to dispense with temporal distancing, do some virtual social outreach, and publish it here in its raw, not-ready-for-prime-time state.

I'd like to hear from you about it. Specifically, I'd love to know about any piece of it--or even about the whole of it--any of following:

• what it makes you think, and/or 
• what it makes you wonder, and/or
• what it makes you feel, and/or
• what you think works, and/or
• what you think doesn't work, and/or
• anything else.

I also have a few questions I'm wrestling with, to which your answers would be welcome: do my allusions work**? are there too many of them? Should I explain the allusions in footnotes? I'm not sure why using allusions seems so important to me right now. Maybe you'll have thoughts even about that last statement.

I think there are some verb tense problems, too. 

So first I'll present the poem; and then I'll tell you where you can respond: there are several places and ways. Ideally, I'd like you to be able to see others' responses, but I'm happy for your name not to accompany your comments, if you'd like to respond anonymously.

Here goes!

Eden in Lockdown

        "Eden is that old-fashioned House
         We dwell in every day . . .."*
                                         Emily Dickinson

We hadn't known we were in Eden
'Til we learned we couldn't leave it.
But we had time on our hands,
Something we seldom did,
Something we seldom took into our hands
When the choice was ours.

So what to take into our hands,
Given the perils of touch itself,
What to shape to our most 
Private self or public need
When dreams deferred so oft to fear  
Since what happens next  
Is in all our hands? 

I started with meatloaf 
On the evening of the first day--
And it was good.
On the morning of the second day,
I bundled newspapers for recycling,
Wrote checks and birthday cards,
Filed clippings in folders where I'd never look.

I told myself what was still good:
Spring just days away,
Robins flocking to the neighbor's hedge,
Electricity surging through power lines,
Keeping us warm and and within reach,
Softening exile at the edge of the unknown.

Best to be placed on house arrest
When one calls someplace home.
On the third night, when the March wind
Silenced the whispers of spring,
I thought of those sentenced to the streets
For whom Eden might be memory,
mockery, or myth.

Okay, if you want to respond to this poem and can leave a comment below (I know some of you have lost comments trying to do this in the past), please do so. If you respond on my Facebook page, I will copy your comments into the comment section below. And if you prefer to email me your comment, I will also post it below.

Also, if you're a "See-Think-Wonder" thinking routine*** fan from our shared or not shared Project Zero days, feel free to respond using that format.

Above all, stay safe and well! Take lots of soap into those hands that you have time on!  Thank you for reading and responding, should you choose to. And looking forward to seeing you in the spring.

* Emily Dickinson, CVIII from Part Five, The Single Hound. 

** Black, C. (2008). "And God separated the light from the dark" [Cartoon]. Winnipeg Free Press.

*** Ritchhart, Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making thinking visible: How to promote engagement, understanding, and independence for all learners. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.