Twice The Pain Poem by gary polonsky

I awoke to the void of my beloved,
Crouched, pained, in the Reading Room,
And then the darkest poem of Covid
From young beloved, spelling doom.

I stood and thought, "What's going on? "
Three hours ago I felt okay,
Are we re-defining dawn?
Yet, being up is just my way.

So thus I rise‎, to the naked chair,
Knowing I can do no good,
Yet believing I should be there,
In faith, not misunderstood.

It gives me time to read the poem
With words as "agony" and "dread",
I pause: what's happening to my home?
Has the new bubonic struck us dead?

I then recall my year of birth,
A year of war was '42,
And what then happened to the Earth
When THAT agony was through.

We all expunged, we all looked up
'Mid the dancing in the street,
Our public, running-over cup,
Our brightest sky, our Elvis beat.

And once we've beat this newest pain
As I am confident we'll do,
We'll rise again and rise again,
For that's our way, thanks to you.



Written in Ontario, Canada - 17th April 2020