A poem for the pandemic

HERMAN SUTTER

April 13, 2020

The world is afraid

and so am I

but this morning I woke

early and went to the park where

I met a woman pushing a stroller

and as we chatted 

from an appropriate distance 

her little boy climbed out

and chased a squirrel

into a tree where he

stood and screamed up into

the high branches: Hello! Hello! Hello! 

We laughed and his mother

said: He’s in charge

of waking the squirrels.  

All of them.

And then I came home

and sat on the porch

at the glass topped table

with the rusty frame

and sipped my coffee 

and watched the pollen 

stirring like golden dust

and the sunlight slicing

a leaf with shadow and 

the breeze stirring a fleck 

of incandescent orange 

and black into the air where it

fluttered round the yard

and hovered over 

the table like a dove

while I sat with my cold coffee 

waiting for the world to end 

but nothing happened except

a bee settled on the lip

of my cup and wandered the edge 

of this beautiful morning 

with me. 

The world is afraid 

but the bee hummed,

filling the cup and reminding me: 

we are alive 

and that is enough 

if only we live.

HERMAN SUTTER is the author of The World Before Grace (Wings Press) and a reviewer for Library Journal. His poetry has appeared in: Touchstone, Saint Anthony Messenger, Ekphrastic Review, Benedict XVI Institute, and By the Light of a Neon Moon (Madville, 2019).   He received the Innisfree prize for poetry.