virus season poem

Mark your forehead with ashes,
your door post with blood.
This plague, blind to faith, deaf to prayer,
passes over or pauses, coming
for him, for her,
for me, for you.

Poetry, like prayer,
wrestles with angels
trying to make sense,
cleaving our lives into before and after
winter / spring
life / death.
​
Far more than forty days, this desert time
yields neither to sacred seasons
nor to spring’s green arrows.
We pray not for resurrection
but for the return
of ordinary time.
​                                         - Mary Turck