We’ve reached the end of the month, which means today is my last day of writing and posting poems about life during COVID-19! I was planning to have the year 2020 write a letter to 2019 for my last poem, but I quickly realized there wasn’t much for me to say that hasn’t been said before.
So instead, I’m taking a less direct method and summing up this month by writing a poem that centers around a feeling that perhaps some can relate to.
For those of you participating in Camp NaNoWriMo, best of luck on the last leg of the sprint!
Routine
a COVID-19 poem by Lauren Hallstrom
The fountain on my desk
is running again.
Sometimes I leave it like that
so when I reenter the room
it’s not silent.
Things tend to be too quiet
or too loud these days.
There is a knot
burrowing behind my eyes
and it is telling me
that I still have so much to learn.
I think it’s okay
to sit back and watch,
sometimes.
The water is running
over the rocks and shells
and bubbling back—
miraculously,
just the way it always has.
Lauren Hallstrom 