Pandemic Poems Plus One

From Wuhan to Bucha and Beyond

The majority of these poems were written between March, 2020, and May, 2022. I was in Mexico February/March as usual when the news started to filter in, actually in Mexico City after being in Isla Mujeres, Zihuatanejo, Puebla, Oaxaca, and back to Mexico City. I was planning on one more week over to Morelia, Patzcuaro, and Guadalajara. I had a ticket back to Reno from Guadalajara on Volaris March 10. But the world was lowering, the gates were closing fast, and I wisely scratched the last week, ate the Volaris ticket, and used some remaining frequent flyer miles for a free one-way ticket from Mexico City to Reno. Then the waves rose up and came crashing down. But I was in the far northeastern corner of California, in the high desert of the Great Basin, where social distancing is a way of life, socialization a choice. I saw it coming like Naomi Watts saw the impossible, and I lay low, writing like a madman through depression and hopelessness towards an open field of exaltation and the promised land. I’m still writing like crazy as this book goes to press. I’ll be writing from the grave if I remember to put a flashlight, pen and paper, in the coffin. Some other work written before March, 2020, has been sprinkled in here and there when it seemed appropriate, but only a little. (I’ve been writing since I was 14 and keeping a journal since 1972, so this is just the tip of the iceberg.) I thought I’d pass this manuscript around, or at least a few poems here and there, to get some publication credits, but there’s not enough time and I’m not getting any younger, not yet. Besides I’m lazy and could twiddle my thumbs procrastinating before sending out time-sensitive work when I could really go on writing, which is all that really counts: To keep on keeping on and do what you love, teach your children well, embrace those you love and even those you don’t, be generous, kind, compassionate, and do the Work.