Paean to All the Books I’m Reading in the Time of COVID
and Black Lives Matter
By Patricia Aya Williams
From the un-masked and (turtled
nooks) of home to the socially – distanced
and sanitized
patios
of coffeeshops,
I greet you.
The world spins
on an axis
of livid proclaiming
and
bulleted majesty
while vultures circle the fetid plain.
It is a summer of fires and
burning,
convulsions of voices
from frac- tured streets.
Still in quiet hours,
there is joy …
I invite you,
keepers of slow wisdom, speak –
your history,
your poetry,
your lives no longer but for ink and thought –
let us reckon together a truth
unshallowed
an air
that will let us all
breathe
Patricia Aya Williams is currently enrolled in the San Diego Writers, Ink Poetry Certificate Program. She is also an award-winning iPhone/iPad digital artist who takes great delight in her scarf collection. Her poems have been published in San Diego Poetry Annual and City Works Literary Journal.
Photo by Daniel Páscoa on Unsplash.