At a table on the sidewalk, by the coffee shop - bliss in the sun. Two masked women rush together, hug, masks rubbing, then step back - physical distancing for talking.
Pandemic Moments – September
Author: joanvinallcox
Joan Vinall-Cox, Ph.D. is a lifelong learner, retired communications professor, and rabid reader who has taught in both the college and university systems.
Her Ph.D., in 2004 was an Autoethnographic Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry focused on moving from technophobia to technophilia.
She is a widow from a pretty happy marriage and a mother to a strong and kind daughter.
Her interests include Centering Prayer, Multiple Intelligences, Attention Deficit Disorder and its connection to creativity, Jung, Campbell’s Monomyth, and Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry.
Childhood Cottage
Looking for my childhood cottage, rain welcomes us, and my mother's landscape was unrecognizable now. except in some corners of my psyche.
Enough
By the midnight fluorescent flickering I wander bemusedly searching for a meaningful question in this empty time. The rain sweet breeze blows in the open window and, as I breath, my heart loosens, throbs, hesitates, yearning to warm and accept the dark otherness with its questions without answers. I am pulled to the dark lake And the windblown moment: And now is enough.
Now Normal
Cars are driving fast again
cursing detour signs
sprouting like COVID masks
A Pandemic Series – My Red Lipstick
A Reposting of the Three Red Lipstick Poems, in Sequence
These three poem-videos belong in this sequence, not in the reverse order in which the blog displays them below, based on when I initially posted them.
1
My red lipstick is annoyed,
muttering behind my mask,
wanting an escape.
2
My red lipstick explains
shyly,
she is not annoyed;
she is afraid.
Afraid I will permanently abandon
her, and my rings,
and the new dress fluttering on its hanger.
Now –
and for all the roiling days
masked in the fog
of an un-normal future.
3
My Red Lipstick Mourns
My red lipstick mourns,
huddled in her drawer,
as I mourn, too,
bare-lipped behind my mask.
Now – I groom for “meetings”,
my red lipstick appears,
digitally
trying to represent who I was.
I yearn for, mourn for,
the times I touched, hugged,
and groomed for,
locked away now,
My Red Lipstick Mourns
My Red Lipstick Mourns
My red lipstick mourns,
huddled in her drawer,
as I mourn, too,
bare-lipped behind my mask.
Now – I groom for “meetings”,
my red lipstick appears,
digitally
trying to represent who I was.
I yearn for, mourn for,
the times I touched, hugged,
and groomed for,
locked away now,
like my red lipstick.
My Red Lipstick Explains
My red lipstick explains
shyly,
she is not annoyed;
she is afraid.
Afraid I will permanently abandon
her, and my rings,
and the new dress fluttering on its hanger.
Now –
and for all the roiling days
masked in the fog
of an un-normal future.
My Red Lipstick
My red lipstick is annoyed,
muttering behind my mask,
wanting an escape.
Layered
I glance at the dead squirrel by the curb
and think of sparrows …
falling.
God sees the little sparrow fall,
It meets His tender view;
If God so loves the little ones,
I know He loves me, too.
We are layered, like the crumbling red rock
cliffside with paths
by the creek of my childhood,
like the flat chunks of
shale scavenged by my parents
to create the high backyard wall.
We are layered,
DNA and birth order threaded through
the earth of our birthplace,
the winds and rains of our times,
the maps our minds draw
to trace our path to the barriers
that contain us.
We are layered
wearing rock-filled backpacks
we strain blindly to reach into,
trying to pull out
the easy changes hidden
and twinned with
the deep-rooted invasive
infective twists.
We are layered:
the work of living
tripping us, shackling
our hopes for freedom
and joy,
as we pray for the tender view
of a sparrow-watching God.
When I Lost Myself
When I lost myself:
I am extinct.
No part of me goes forward.
I am ashes
Underground.
My stories silenced.
My mutating memories
dismissed.
My sorrows and joys erased:
blankness bracketing grief.
When I First Returned
My death still bled
into a suppurating
numbness,
and terror.
It didn’t feel like a choice:
study the wound
or disappear.
I agreed to look.
Now
I stand beside the river
I came from and will return to;
I look into it,
still learning to swim.
Learning Living 