More idle thoughts in the Time of Lockdown

This blog site is generally about subjects like genetics, disease, science, and our attempts to understand the complexity of Nature.  But, obviously, those of us not involved in the science to combat the corona virus, have are other things on our minds. For some--perhaps many or even most--it is the very idea of survival, the fear that "the virus could take me down, too!"

Under these conditions, we've not been thinking about science, but about distraction, esthetics, musings on Nature and so on.  In that spirit we offer this verse.  It's about the small mountain adjacent to our new home with, that has a roughly road up to the top, where there are an observation tower and picnic tables.  It's a road we regularly walk for exercize....and for something other than the virus to think about.

Mounting Sugarloaf

In strolling up Mount Sugarloaf

One travels tors of old,
A venerable pile of rock
That in the stone reflects
A past both slow and bold

There were no human witnesses
On hand to note the course
That slowly built the hillsides up,

As layers rose and bent

With geologic force

With shaking seismic happenings

Its greatest shape was gained,
First lifting up and taking form;

But then as years wore by,

Eroding when it rained

                                         

And now can we, when walking there

And witnessing what stays,

Of taller peaks and sharper crags

That humbler have been made,

Imagine ancient days!

I'd take a walk

Taking a walk

I’d take a walk to get away

And for corona be not prey

But if it’s lurking everywhere

Then strolling can’t escape its lair

Each step may draw me close to doom

So, I’ll just hunker in my room!

More poetic thoughts for these awful times.....

These are lock-down times for us all, and for most of us they are essentially unprecedented.  We, or at least I, sit at home, gazing out the window wishing for normalcy.  Would you agree with me, that we are in a time to contemplate the meaning of things, the things that really have meaning?  And, in the absence of other ways that seems even nearly suitable, I try to write my thoughts in verse.  Whether anybody else will think that's appropriate, at least here are examples that seem apt to me.


Gravely, gravely

Gravely, gravely came the news

Of viral pestilential blues

Whence deaths and disabilities

Were nearly universal woes

The toll too great to read the roll

The land beset with sighs and cries

The toll, the toll--we scan the rolls

Of names that once were lively souls

The list grew daily as did sighs

For those who’ll ne’er again give smiles

A roll too long to be all told

Oh, land beset with sighs and cries!

Some day, some day, will names be few

Of deaths that pile, by ones and twos

To add to graves from yesterday:

Then, fertilizing fields of grass

Producing flowers and fragrant dews

Graves once beset by sighs and cries

As the Tombstones Wear Away

(From a walk in an old Massachusetts graveyard)

From tombstones in the graveyard, our history wears away;

Weath’ring very slowly, yet eroding day by day:

Of children falling ere they played, inscribed are many named;

They had brief lives, then passed away, so soon, and ne’er were famed.

Of others passing in decline are memories waning, too,

As tombstoned records of their days are slowly eaten through:

Ah! and since our Earth itself’s a slowly aging ball,

The time will come when no one’s memory exists at all.

Drink Your Clorox!

Drink your Clorox while you can,

UV your innards ‘til they tan

Since soon you will be sure to hear

The spoil-sports telling you to fear:

Advice from higher-ups to shun,

The President’s will leave you stunned!

But no! Since as you conk you're rid

Of need to fear the bad Covid

So, drink your Clorox now, before

The groceries will have no more!

This corona is not a beer, and hard to bear!

Corona Quakes

As our earth shakes

In viral trembling

Pandemic makes

Us fear assembling

Yet let’s insist

Without distorting:

We must persist

In not cavorting!

Keeping distance--

Yards spaced apart

Gives resistance:

Advice that’s smart

That bugs unseen

Could cause such terror:

A fear so keen

Of each mask wearer!

Yet this will pass

As do they all

The end at last--

A passing pall! 

But let it not

From memory fade

Lest we repeat

This grim parade!

The plague of our times.....

What can one do when hunkered down in a plague, something we've not really seen in any of our lifetimes, at least in the wealthier part of the world?  One is to try to express in some way other than dry prose or statistics, what one is thinking.  In that spirit here are a couple of verses, written in the expanse of spare time that we while away, to keep us from worrying too much in these times of plague:

Corona Masking

If all of us would wear a mask

Which, we’ve been shown’s a simple task,

Then none of us would be a loner

While all are safer from corona

A mask like that’s a snap to make

A sane precaution all should take:

With scarf, bandana, or worn-out Tee

I won’t harm you, and you not me!

A Grey Corona Day

I sit here on a grisly day, the clammy wintry kind,

When snow blows cheerfulness into a grisly pall;

A virus called ‘corona’ seems lurking all around,

And causing eerie symptoms, of any kind at all

We can’t be sure how deadly this bug might really be

In most it passes quickly, with sniffles and that’s it

But some, the ill or elderly, are made to fear they’ll see

A fever, cough, or breathing lapse, their final earthly fit

So, while they say that many won’t know they’re sick at all--

A headache it may be, or touch of wat’ry eye,

It only takes a cough to make one’s spirits fall

Since if for some it may be nothing, for others they will die!

To find uplifting thoughts is what we need to do:

To laugh, to smile, or tell a humorous tale,

Recite a verse, perhaps, or maybe even two,

And if also adding music--improvement will prevail!