The Story of a Plague
I sorrow at the darkness of the news
Of mortal pestilence and storms of shame.
I watch scoundrels fighting to hide from blame
Or blur their definitions to confuse
The madness that has led to deaths, not mine,
Not yet (that’s still impending), but a score
Of millions, numbers mounting, many more
Than bleak reportage can enumerate
__Or rolls of loss define.
A time has been, I think of it with pain
And joy, pain since it could no longer last,
Joy since it was, though fallen to the past,
When breath came easily, immune from strain.
Now air flows raggedly, uncertainly,
Into my laboured lungs. And I am one
Of many this pandemic has undone,
Caught in a net depraved research has cast,
__Unnecessarily.
Winter comes at last after a long, sere
Autumn turned long-suffering forests dry,
Brown and barren. Now deep rain floods the sky.
Hail beats the sandy ground. Faces appear,
Broadcast through the world, striving to evade,
With voices brash or fearful, nervous, stunned,
The guilt of old decisions made to fund
The making of a sickness. Nor may I
__Rest in the growing shade.
Here is something new, never seen before.
A far-flung plague, its provenance concealed,
Bereavement, maiming, never to be healed,
While journalists pursue their futile store
Of shrill distractions. Weather pounds the walls.
And in the sadness of the shattered globe,
Grim congressional dignitaries probe
Excuses, cowardice, deceit revealed.
__The chairman’s gavel falls.
I too have managed funding, seen reports,
Met the gaze of politicians and faced
Federal inquiries. And I have traced
Studies and treatments. What shall be my thoughts,
Encountering how charlatans have thrown
Treasure at crazed experiments and spread
Illness from town to town, left many dead,
Wrecked schools and shuttered businesses, displaced
__Lovers to gasp alone?
I watch witnesses bluster, squirm or fence
With questioners’ enraged or measured eyes.
I find them helpless to perform their lies
Rehearsed to face this hour of consequence
I sway before the failures and the harm.
But anger is a passion that can kill
And ruin intellects. Patience can still
The gales of rage. And innocent blood cries
__In fleeting hours of calm.
The Sun Falls
I fight for breath, attempt to think and fail.
The sun falls from its journeys in the deep
Valleys of sky, drops to green seas to sleep.
I watch a fading, ocean-going sail
Crossing the twilit tides from east to west,
The secret world of strands and cold, quick schools,
Feeling the long disorder in my chest,
Consequent on a plague sent forth by fools.
It desolates my moments, weeks and hours.
Seagulls explore and quarrel in sea showers.
Night tides compel the mountains to obey,
Pour histories across dark rocks and reefs.
And memory calls back forgotten griefs,
Guilt of an evening’s circumstantial play,
Or others’ reckless crimes, not to be healed.
How is it some can look across the coast,
The moving sand, the sounding, rippling field,
The questing eagle, settling seabirds’ host,
Knowing the swift infection they have sent
To wreck the old, the young and innocent?
How is it some can watch the stars arrive
From wells behind the sun to pierce the night
With images of ancient silver light,
Then scurry back to shadows to contrive
New lies and obfuscations of their shame?
Though cruelty surrounds me, and my hands
Are far from guiltless, I shall love the flame
That made and holds the stars, the coast, the lands,
And grants me moments by the changing sea,
The shoals of life, the waves’ long melody.
Michael Robinson lives in Australia’s southwest. He has worked in health policy and has managed funding programs, grants and contracts. His poems have been published in numerous print and on-line journals. He has won awards including the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize and the Tom Collins Poetry Prize. His books are The Tiger in the Vineyard (Ginninderra, 2015), The Music of the Streets (Ginninderra, 2017) and The Wounds of Faith (Immortalise, 2023).
Michael, it’s good to have your work here to expand the Society of Classical Poets’ already long collection of pandemic poems. Your perspective as both official manager and patient sufferer is welcome. “The Sun Falls” seems to concern Long Covid, one topic yet to be extensively treated. I’m glad to say I know someone now completely cured of that form of the affliction–and hope you will be as well, if this is a personal story. The final lines provide a most effective musical uplift, as you listen to “the waves’ long melody” from the “shoals of life.”
Thank you, Margaret. I know of a number of people suffering long term consequences from Covid and I’m glad to hear the person you know is fully recovered. Covid can cause interstitial lung disease, meaning incurable scarring to the lungs, which is what has happened to me. Fortunately there are medications now that can slow the rate at which the scarring progresses, so that is something. I’m glad you liked the poems and appreciate your comments.
I hear you Michael, it’s a plague-ridden universe, perhaps but poetry can perhaps console us ; I wrote this on poetry’s powers of defence :
SHIELD OF ARCHILOCUS
by Eugenio Capuccio —-
Like an amulet from the Book the Dead
an epode of Archilochus was found
wrapped around an Egyptian mummy, read
against death : the Muse’s whisper’s a sound
that plates the travelling soul against all dread.
Richard Burton too wished to be interred
with a book of Dylan Thomas’s verse.
A stronger spell than that of a great bard
does not exist against a threatening universe
infected with hidden or obvious curse.
The soul shall be warded against all entropy
when the corpse is shrouded in divine poetry.
Thank you, Eugenio. That is a lovely poem.
Thanks, Michael, means a lot, and it was an honour for me to tag it on to yours. Please take it as my highest compliment.
Michael, measuring your life against such an affliction caused by the self-inflicted medical mendacity of labs, such as that of Wuhan, was done with great imagery and meaning that continues to haunt us all and apparently you in particular who managed to persevere and survive. Bless you and your work.
Thanks for your kind words. I’m very grateful. I think continually of the millions who have suffered and often died, and of the many who continue to suffer.. And of the official failures and mendacity (a good word). I’m happy you liked the poems and their imagery,
Michael, these poems are excellent in form, topic, and beauty.
By saying “my hands are far from guiltless,” is the narrator accepting blame for being part of the plague-evil? Or is he simply acknowledging he, like the rest of us, has his own imperfections?
Thank you very much, Mary. What I meant was simply that no-one, least of all me, is without guilt and imperfection of one kind or another. So while calling out evil, it’s important, in my view, not to be self-righteous. I’m pleased that you found the writing pleasurable, despite the austere topic, and grateful for your feedback..
Unfortunately, pandemics happen, whether through a sudden mutation (Spanish flu, the Spanish king being the first prominent sufferer), man encountering a previously unknown disease that jumps the species barrier (AIDS), or one that perhaps escaped from a lab after an accidental infection (COVID).
It’s a shame if scientists or experts were not 100% honest, though with the outbreak of an unfamiliar illness, a lot of factors are involved as to its mortality and the precautions needed to stem its advance.
My wife has long COVID, which presents itself in a virtual lack of the sense of smell, which though not as debilitating as a shortness of breath, has led to an incidence of food poisoning (from rotten peanut butter of all things) and a general lowering of the enjoyment of life.
Your poem has some amazing visualisations, Michael, and a melancholic undertone that makes us wonder at the microbes all around us and those empowered to protect us from them.
Thanks for the poignant read.
Thanks for these kind words, Paul. And I’m sorry to learn of your wife’s ongoing loss of the sense of smell. I know someone who has an impairment to her senses of smell and taste from an earlier virus. It is very encouraging that you liked the tone and the visualisations. Thank you again.
Michael your poem ends with the sufferer still seeking to enjoy life, despite a heavy weight with every breath. After all you describe, it’s a strikingly uplifting conclusion.
Reminds me of Harold Russel, the actor/veteran who lost his hands in WW2.
“It’s not what you lost. It’s what you have left.”
I wish you many blessings in your struggles.
Thank you, Gerald, for your kind thoughts. I think it’s important both for poetry and life to try to hold onto what good we can and to try to be both truthful and, wherever possible, postive. I’m glad you picked up on that and I’m grateful for your comment.
Thank you, Gerald, for your kind thoughts. I think it’s important both for poetry and life to try to hold onto what good we can and to try to be both truthful and, wherever possible, postive. I’m glad you picked up on that and I’m grateful for your comment.