By Joe Dan Boyd, 1995 AAEA President, Winner of the 2020 Northeast Texas Poetry Contest
Invisible as a China breeze, it fluttered into our life.
On little cat’s feet it crept into our country and state.
Corona virus it was first called, and then Covid-19.
Death was its stern message and our potential fate.
Masks, social distance and please wash your hands:
Keep safe, avoid crowds and just stay home.
No movies, no concerts, no indoor church service:
Against both science and superstition, death comes.
Death: Are you avenger, angel or bitter avarice?
Swiftly you transformed my young life,
Galloping away with my mother: I was only two.
Will she know me in a divine afterlife?
Speedily as well, you carried my father away,
When I was a lad barely past the age of three:
All this after the death of my sister, Nelda June,
Only seven months old: Before any thought of me.
Your legacy so harsh: Strong like virulent ash.
In my boyish dreams, you were never far away:
Lurking here, there, unseen, yet surely everywhere,
Lying in wait for me, shrouded in mist of gray.
Not until I was thirty, my father’s maximum age,
Did I cease to fear your dark presence, foreboding:
That it was not, in fact, my fate to die young.
Brightening my fitful dreams: My life emboldening.
Still, memories recall to me the preciousness of life:
A funeral service for an accidentally slain mockingbird.
Endless tears for Poochie, dog love of my lengthened life,
Sorrow at a brother’s funeral, comforted only by The Word.
Grief at the tragic death of a close college friend.
I still tell the story of his exemplary life:
At Aggie Musters I recount his bravery,
Integrity, loyalty, character, in both joy and strife.
Covid 19 reminds of other pandemics and plagues:
Polio, agonizing killer from days of my childhood,
Spanish Flu, a virus from the generation of my parents,
Bubonic Plague, black death of Europe’s somber mood.
Five Million Covid-19 cases in US by August, 2020.
Death’s bitter hour to 176,000 unsuspecting souls.
World-wide pandemic in 2020, and all 50 US States.
Not even Northeast Texas would be spared whole
Now mature: Some call me sad-eyed ancient,
I treasure the flickering wind we call breath.
Comprehending not, the motivation of anyone
Who ignores precautions, encouraging death.
May we so live that when comes our own clear call
To become one with rocks, rills and peaceful streams:
There we explore realms unknown, moving with
Grace and trust to slumber in purposeful dreams.
–A tribute to lives lost to Covid-19 in Northeast TX