Salus Populi Romani. She is the Protectress or the Salvation of the Roman people. I find myself looking at her image once in a while. I feel comforted by this beautiful Madonna. Hiding from the world around me, I have forgiven myself for not writing a 400-page poetry manuscript during this time.
For a long time, I just kept saying "I can't . . ." I had planned to travel to Italy in May, to visit the Santuario di La Madonna di Montevergine in Mercogliano. I had also planned to spend time in Naples and visit the Santuario Madonna dell'Arco and its Ex-Votos Musem. That plan disappeared by mid-February. No traveling anywhere. By March it was clear all I needed to do was protect myself and my child. I convinced myself that in a month or two, everything would be safe.
But I did not know that so many people don't care about people over the age of 50. That for me and so many others, we are left isolated, alone, on the margins. Who cares if we are suffering from depression, anxiety, despair?
But recently in the heat wave of mid-July, where every day it felt like we were burning alive--extreme heat and smoke from the nearby forest fires, I opened up a notebook. In the heat and the smoke, I wrote a poem about Medea, the Poison Queen, and from her point of view, I was able to speak. The poem is rough, but I will work on it.
After that I began to look at my book project that I started during my sabbatical. I try to have daily contact. I listen for the voices. Have they abandoned me? I don't have all my books. But why do I need them? I left them in my office, in a space where I felt safe. Now I am listening to the dry wind late in the day in Albuquerque, New Mexico. No rain. Just wind drying all the plants. My sad, little garden looks half-dead, not dead but not really alive.
Every morning I wake up and try to remember what it felt like to wake up and to not be living in a pandemic.
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