Inhabitants of the New Familiar

On the parking lot and the city park: a poem.

I wander through the city park, its child-call game fields now bare, the joggers few, the changes stark. No half-hid lovers anywhere.

The grocery stores’ car parks are packed, but not their shelves, those too are bare. No more canned foods artfully stacked, our accustomed bounty — nowhere!

I think of the supplies I’ve squirreled away the last few panicked days, the plenty I’ve plucked from the world, unthinking, disrupted by delays.

But in City Park the squirrels run, Their tree-larders full, their bellies fed. A pond turtle sprawls in the sun, a bright blue jay sails overhead.

As I take my chihuahua to the park these days, staying six feet and more away from other people, I am struck by how life goes on for the squirrels and birds and turtles. They may be innocent, in some respects, those wild creatures. They know nothing of COVID-19. But, like us, they are preparing, reacting, according to their own experiences.

Thanks to David S. for giving us this marvelous William Blake prompt (below)! My own poem was inspired by the prompt and by Blake’s “London.”

© Brian Fehler 2020