The Usual

The Yellow daffodils are pushing their way out of the firm soil just as they used to.

The white blossoms surround the branches on my sidewalk tree just as they used to.

The small birds are on my lawn digging for worms just as they used to.

The pink magnolia blossoms are dancing on the neighbor’s tree just as they used to. 

The bushy tailed squirrels are chasing each other up and down and all around just as they used to.

The fluffy white clouds are painted against the blue sky just as they used to.

So what is wrong?

Everything is wrong!!

We are locked inside!

Ben needs medical help!

Carl needs to get on a toxic airplane to get back to his family!

Everything is wrong!

It will take a long time to get it right!

Maybe these are the good times because no one in our family has been stricken with the virus.

The sun is shining making strong shadows on our lawn just as it used to.

The wind is tossing the few remaining dried leaves just as it used to.

The birds are singing their spring songs just as they used to.

But where are the little children from the Stepping Stone preschool who came by each day on their neighborhood walk?

Ben would always give each one a fresh flower pulled from his garden, and then a high five.

No school!

No children!

Not the usual!

Ethyl H.

April 2020

The Folly of Icarus

Bright orange red, it’s billowy flames explode from the surface of the sun. Daedalus warned me and I am careful not to get too close. A million degrees, it mesmerizes me as I fly on, perspiration on my brow, the twine and feathers beginning to smolder as the wax on my wings starts to melt. I must turn away. My father was right as usual. I must break the trance before it’s too late as the wax dissolves. The fiery orange glow holds me in its grip. I am forsaken.

Wait a minute I’m daydreaming.

It is only an orange in my fruit bowl!

Jim

April 2020

Sea in the Key of Cerulean

I would begin by revealing the deep dark secret that blue is my favorite color. Okay, it’s not exactly a deep dark secret now is it? I just enjoy adding that sense of mystery. Somewhere someone scratched their head either literally or figuratively wondering why is this a deep dark secret? I distinctly recall as a young child that I simply loved the color blue. I don’t know why. In childlike fashion, I can tell you that it’s the color of the sky, or the ocean, though sometimes here in Queens it borders on green.

The ocean.

I’ve always been drawn to the sea. In a perfect world, I would live on a houseboat in Key West, channel my inner-Hemingway, while watching the sunrise from the fore deck and the sunset from the aft deck. Of course, as a non-boat person, I don’t know my fore from my aft. When you think about it, however, it really wouldn’t matter in this scenario. Houseboats are maneuverable. If one prefers the sunrise from the fore position and sunset from aft, great. If it’s the other way around, turn the boat around.

There’s a Buffett tune in here somewhere, I can feel it.

            It all comes back to blue. Cerulean is my favorite shade. In my mind, I always see the sea in the key of Cerulean. I’m deep into Assonance and alliteration by the way, so sue me – for lack of a better cliché.

I am not a fan of the cliché. Cliché’s make me

(wait for it, wait for it)

Blue!

All shades of blue.

I had taken a fiction writing course here in NYC several years ago and the instructor was determined to break me of this affinity I never knew I had for clichés. How could I not have noticed that? Now I consider myself the cliché constable in these parts, often correcting others who fall into the cliché coal mine of depravity. I’ve become pretty adept at spotting clichés from a mile…make that a kilometer away. Now I avoid them like the pl…

Coronavirus.

Which also makes me blue.

.

Tom M

April 2020

Sirens

 

One. Two, Three. Four. Five.  Five ambulances in a row sound their way past my apartment.  I haven’t heard so many sirens since 9/11. My stomach tightens from the memory of that time combined with the anxiety of the moment.  Most days, most hours there are intermittent wails of the ambulance alarms. Each day the time between the alarms becomes shorter and shorter. They are the ugly warbling of a worsening pandemic.  Queens is the hot spot in the epicenter of the disease.  Every day, I hear them on their way to Jamaica Hospital, where they line up at the ER dock. There is no room inside the hospital for new Covid-19 patients, but somehow they keep coming. Will the precious cargo within the ambulance last long enough to make it to the hospital door or will the patient expire and exit through another portal to another plane?

 Over the threshold of my own door, I sit in my apartment wondering if the virus will pay a call and how long it might stay, host and unwanted guest bearing down on each other, each engaging to win the fight. I am the hand-washing “elderly” with multiple underlying conditions they keep referring to on the news. Here I sit, a “self-distancing” target, trying to remain invisible to the invader. In the meantime I distract myself with amusing calls back and forth between friends and family, cleaning my unruly apartment, and falling into the hypnotic hole of the internet and television. I am thankful for the balms of painting, writing, reading and sweet music.  The day passes.

During the time it has taken to record these thoughts, an additional nine ambulances have troubled my words with their swelling whine. And then there is short silence.

Marsha H.

April 2, 2020