Long Covid, Year Five

Long Covid, Year Five

I am repeatedly startled
by how much I can do, then
by how little. 

This body is my home, 

and my home is a boat,
rocked on the swells
of an unseen sea. 

This body is my home. 

On Belay

Vulture swoop,
samara spin,
pitter patter of dirt rain.

You, out of sight.
You, rising up.
Me, feeding your freedom
with a thin, blue line. 

The Prompt

On the surface, these poems have little to do with one another. The first is an attempt to capture what it’s like to live in this body now, more than five years into my long Covid saga. I wrote it while lying on my back in a circle swing, hanging from Silver Maple’s outstretched limb, my legs resting against the ropes and reaching toward sky. This is one of the quickest and most enjoyable ways to get blood to my brain, who is often thirsty and makes a point of letting me know. I felt bewildered and frustrated when I wrote this poem. I had been on a Zoom call moments before but had to bail suddenly when brain fog rolled in. I couldn’t tolerate screens for the remainder of the day.

I wrote the second poem five days later, while belaying my climbing partner on a trad route (meaning there are no bolts or other fixed gear on the rock). Five days before, I hadn’t been able to make it through a Zoom call. On this day, I hiked steep, eroded, and at times exposed trails with a 25 or so pound pack in order to spend the day jamming my hands into the cracks of rocks, hauling myself upward against gravity. Mostly, it felt wonderful. Same body, different days.

Here’s something the two poems have in common: they are each reflect a particular moment in my life. A particular mood or setting. When I read them side by side, I like how I begin to imagine new meanings for the second poem. Suddenly, instead of belaying my partner, I imagine my body belaying my mind and heart. I imagine my body keeping me safe, my body being yanked into the air when I overreach, my body protecting my fall with her own gravity. My body feeding me freedom, like paying out rope, letting me go a little farther, then a little farther still, then suddenly holding me fast.

If you would like a prompt to play with today, then I invite you to seek out a few little slice-of-life, moment-in-time poems of your own. In a moment of intense frustration or sadness or hope or silliness, pause and find a poem tucked into the folds of feeling. In a moment of waiting idly for this or that, look around you and within you, take in the whole of the moment and find the poem waiting inside it. When you’re doing something utterly mundane—walking to mailbox, brushing your teeth, , typing an email, microwaving food—see how deeply you can sink into the experience. How richly present you can be. How much sensory detail you can absorb. What emotions rise to the surface. Let that shape itself into a poem—or even just a fragment of a poem. Imagine what you think a poem should be, and lower the bar. Then lower the bar again. A snippet of a poem is enough. If you do something wonderful, fun, exciting, look for an itty bit of a poem there, too.

Gather these snippets over a few days. Maybe keep them in a single document/note on your phone, or maybe jot them into a notebook. Once you’ve accrued a few, read them together. Is there one that pops most for you? Are there parallels, contrasts, or interactions between them that capture your interest? That reveal something—or reveal that something is waiting to be revealed? The interaction between two or more poems can be its own unspoken poem.

There is no official endpoint to this prompt. You might end (for now) with one little poem or with a small collection of poetic fragments. Or you might find that parts of that fragment collection want to be woven together into one longer poem. Choose your own adventure here—and everywhere, if you can. I look forward to reading whatever poems or fragments or thoughts you care to share! Thank you so much for being here and holding space for my words.

P.S. I’ve had seven volunteers for our poetry telephone game! It’s not too late to get in on the fun. Read all about it at the end of my last post, and let me know if you’d like me to add your name to the list.