Thank you Amy Ludwig VanDerwater for hosting this week’s Poetry Friday! Please check in with her at The Poetry Farm where you will be rewarded, as usual, with poetry and her inspiring and insightful thoughts about poetry. She possesses a remarkable wealth of talent.
Today forsythias.
The forsythia is wonderful news this week, along with my family’s good health.
Today, I would like to tell Poetry Friday authors who have the time, that there is a Twitter campaign afoot to encourage young people to stay in place and stay safe. Kids need encouragement to take social distancing seriously in order to save lives.
Thank you, Padma Venkatraman, a fellow contributor in THANKU: POEMS OF GRATITUDE and the author of THE BRIDGE HOME, for launching this hashtag campaign! Padma is requesting that authors take a selfie of themselves with one of their books, and post with it a message. It can be written on a post-it stuck on the book. Padma reminds us of the many kids who might be homeless. Your message might be “Stay safe. Shelter in place. Stay safe” or whatever message you like. This is not a marketing opportunity, just a chance to encourage kids.
Kids are “looking for guidance from people they trust: celebrities, athletes, teachers, authors.” Hashtags include: #AuthorsTakeAction, #TakeShelterInStory, #socialdistancing, #thankyoufirstresponders.
If you have the time, check out these hashtags to see what some authors have done.
Below is a cinquain addressed to the very infectious Covid 19 virus. It’s a weak plea. It cannot be heard by this bundle of RNA, this dreadful highjacker looking for a host. Once it gets in a nose, eye or mouth, it takes over the DNA in normal cells and replicates efficiently, like a house fire
Virus. Dumb, blind pirate, accidentally conceived, on the wind in search of a home- Please leave!
Stay safe and well, everyone.
Lovely forsythia! Ours is now shedding flowers and greening up, but it was a most welcome sign of spring. Your cinquain for this virus pandemic is spot on. I wish it did have ears to hear our pleas to leave! And I hope people young and old (my mother is the one giving more difficulty about staying home than the young people living with me) will heed the calls to shelter in place.
I really like your cinquain. Reminds me of telling my kids to yell at the thunder to go away when they were little. I think I might write a poem to the virus too.
Thanks for the heads up about the twitter campaign, and for your urgently needed poem!
Sigh…it is amazing that such beauty and such devastation exist in the same post. Thank you for your wise poem, kind words, and forsythia. We have some in a jar inside, forced and lovely even on this snowy day. I am in Western New York and never knew that about Syracuse. So cool! Be well. xx
Janice, I liked the introduction to your poem as much as the poem itself! “This bundle of RNA, this dreadful highjacker looking for a host” — is such a vivid description.
‘Please leave!’ indeed – you are very polite in stating what we are all thinking.
‘Please leave!’ indeed – you are very polite in stating what we are all thinking. I’ll also take up the challenge to post a picture and post-it. Great idea.
Your cinquain illustrates just how pervasive this virus is: “on the wind in search of a home”. Thanks for sharing your poem and your forsythia… thank goodness for the beauty of spring flowers. Be well. : )