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| Untitled Drawing by Scott Ketcham |
During the next weeks, a number of you responded to my request for writing help by commenting on the post itself, sharing thoughts about it on Facebook, and emailing me at home. With your permission, I posted your emailed comments in the comment section after the blog post. Members of the No Name Poets, "my" poetry writing group," also made suggestions at one of our bi-monthly Friday morning meetings. Thanks to all of you whose thoughtful reactions, questions, and suggestions really did guide my next efforts.
Here is the poem in its "final" version. And I'm glad to say that in Boston, the plight of the homeless during the COVID-19 pandemic has not been ignored.
Eden in Lockdown
"Eden is that old-fashioned House
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 separate was essential
To our inseparable fates,
When dreams deferred fast to fear,
Given the magnitude of truth:
That the future was in all our hands?
I took ground beef into mine:
Meatloaf on the evening of the first day—
And it was good.
On the morning of the second day,
I bundled newspapers for recycling,
Filed clippings in folders where I'd never look,
Created order without meaning,
Knowing balms could not protect.
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 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,
Until I took my comforter into my hands
And, tucking it under my chin,
Almost slept.
'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 separate was essential
To our inseparable fates,
When dreams deferred fast to fear,
Given the magnitude of truth:
That the future was in all our hands?
I took ground beef into mine:
Meatloaf on the evening of the first day—
And it was good.
On the morning of the second day,
I bundled newspapers for recycling,
Filed clippings in folders where I'd never look,
Created order without meaning,
Knowing balms could not protect.
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 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,
Until I took my comforter into my hands
And, tucking it under my chin,
Almost slept.
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