Carol Flake Chapman is a regular contributor to NextTribe. After a stint in academia, where she taught courses in creative writing and women in literature, she turned to journalism, working as writer and editor for several leading newspapers and magazines. She has covered religion and spirituality, culture, politics, travel and nature. Her book, Written in Water: A Memoir of Love, Death and Mystery, tells of her pilgrimage from grief to consolation after the sudden death of her husband on a wild river in Guatemala.
During the coronavirus crisis, she has found consolation in poetry. A collection of the poems she has written over the past few months will be published in June under the title, Maybe We Will All Become Butterflies.
A Prolonged Spring Cleaning
Maybe it starts with all the hand washing
Well it’s hard to know when to stop
Once you start cleaning and you
Have nothing else to do except eat
So you look around startled at the dirt
Hidden in cracks and crevices you ignored
How did it all accumulate unnoticed
You start even vacuuming the past
I have seen the error of my ways
And the dust bunnies under the couch
Come under surprised scrutiny
I’m also rediscovering things I love
And have lost or neglected in my rush
To outrun grief or failure or insignificance
How could I have misplaced that turtle pin
How could I have forgotten my Santana album
And how did that birthday card go astray
The one from my mom that plays when opened
If only I could cleanse the past of all its unseemly
Dark spots and blotches and cobwebs of regret
Alas my memories are inaccessible to dust brooms
***
We’re happy to bring you more poetry written about the pandemic. We hope it soothes and centers you during this time.
A Prayer for the Sequestered by Carol Flake Chapman
Apocalypse by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell
When This is Over by Laura Kelly Fanucci
0 Comments