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.