Rewriting King Lear in a Time of Pandemic
KENDRA PRESTON LEONARD
May 11, 2020
(Author’s note: Below, I revisit the play at a time when some have suggested it was written during a plague year, and I use words and ideas from the text, as well as anagrams of “King Lear” and “Covid.”)
I
Your sweet heart
keep from whirlwinds.
Engrail it with caregiving
as above
the rollicking lark
oversails your walk.
By doing charity,
vex the fiends.
Bring cakes and garlic,
dovetail vigilance
with valor.
II
You who maverick at this time,
keep your foot out of the webs
spun on the road and windows,
and punish no homes but your own.
Entreat your old to stay,
and need not even five yourself.
Shut up your doors and there
flourish wild within: lick bear-cubs into bears,
fool and make content and bide the pitiless storm
with porridge and warm blanket,
with singing wolf and purring fox and sleeping dog,
with tadpoles in the ditch and green mantle
to see when cock crows at last.
III
We should grace our kin with ink,
and our deliverers with chalk,
and write a thousand notes on the concrete.
Play at the clavier and trumpet,
long silent and corked with dust;
savor gin and vodka, nettles and chives,
make puppets from socks and
stroll the decks of our homes,
run with the happy dogs in opulent sun,
and abide, shielded from the diseases of the world.
IV
The elk before the mountain,
the mountain cloaked and cradling,
the cradle carved from olive.
Viking, devil, virago,
void, alcove, cage,
grind, crave, veil.
The kids along the river,
the river rinked with ice,
ice calved from far away.
Dove, vole, rover,
voice, lake, rival,
dive, lock, cave.
The grove in a ring,
the ring laced with grackles,
the grackles croaking, racing.
Clerk, girl, crone,
coven, vigor, glover,
care, roil, live.
V
Guard with vigilance: preserve
the hedge and sky and hills,
the beasts and trees and winds,
and with the sprig of rosemary,
remember, escape, attend.
KENDRA PRESTON LEONARD’S creative work is inspired by the local, historical, and mythopoeic. Her chapbook Making Mythology was published in 2020 by Louisiana Literature Press, and her work has appeared in numerous publications. Leonard collaborates regularly with composers on new operas and songs. Follow her on Twitter at @K_Leonard_PhD.
