Skip to main content

A poem about pandemics, and friendship, on this Poetry Friday.

I awake to a world constrained
by autumn fog
that limits how far
I can see.

Train and bus carry me
through the fog
through the neighboring villages
through the city
towards my friend —
but at each stop along the way
the wider world remains hidden 
behind a grey curtain.

In the time before face masks and lockdowns, 
we greeted each other each week
with three kisses on the cheek.
We drank tea,
we talked,
we wrote new words,
we shopped at the farmer’s market
together.

Together now, 
for the first time in months
we do not greet with three kisses
but we drink tea
and talk,
and as we do,
sun burns through fog,
reveals mountain and city,
pushes the boundaries of the world
back out again
to where they used to be.
© 2021, Elisabeth Norton, All Rights Reserved

Poetry Friday is being hosted by Laura Purdie Salas. You can find all the poetry goodness here.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. tanita✿davisSeptember 24, 2021 at 7:52 PM

    Ah, here's to the world's margins being pushed back to reveal something new, perhaps, and to make the strange seem a bit more familiar. Happy Friday.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ElisabethSeptember 29, 2021 at 9:29 AM

      Isn't it funny how once familiar things now feel strange. How our world has been turned into a mirror image of what it once was. Thanks for your comment!

      Delete
  2. laurasalasSeptember 24, 2021 at 9:36 PM

    Lovely, Elisabeth! I am astonished at how simultaneously hard and easy it is to get used to not touching when we need to not touch. I love the gray curtain of the fog, the blurred world, and (in my interpretation) the pandemic and masks that have separated us from each other.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ElisabethSeptember 29, 2021 at 9:29 AM

      Thank you Laura! I hope the boundaries of our world will continue to open up to us in the months to come.

      Delete
  3. RuthSeptember 25, 2021 at 8:47 PM

    Love! Both the poem and the prospect of the boundaries getting pushed out again. May it be so!

    ReplyDelete
  4. JoneSeptember 26, 2021 at 4:08 AM

    I love how fog moves through this poem. Our world has changed so much.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ElisabethSeptember 29, 2021 at 9:31 AM

      Thanks Jone. Where I live, fog is one of the hallmarks of autumn's arrival. It was fun to play with that as an image in this poem.

      Delete
  5. Linda MitchellSeptember 26, 2021 at 1:44 PM

    The boundaries of the world. What a wonderful image.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Michelle KoganSeptember 27, 2021 at 7:10 AM

    Beautiful poem Elisabeth, I like how it circles around towards the end, shifts gears, and sheds some light on loses with:
    "sun burns through fog,
    reveals mountain and city,
    pushes the boundaries of the world
    back out again"
    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ElisabethSeptember 29, 2021 at 9:31 AM

      Thanks Michelle. I'm hoping that our boundaries will continue to open back up in the months to come.

      Delete
  7. Susan T.September 27, 2021 at 2:50 PM

    I love this, Elisabeth! A depiction of the kind of re-connection we're all hoping for on so many levels.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for your comments! Comment moderation is active. Your comments will be posted after they have been reviewed. Thank you for your patience!

Popular posts from this blog

Poetry Friday: The Party is Here!

 Welcome everyone to Poetry Friday! If you're new to Poetry Friday, you can read more about it here . I've been chasing deadlines all week, but poetry always provides a welcome pause in the busiest of schedules. Perhaps because of the kind of writing I've been doing (which is not related to poetry at all) it was a bit hard to get started on a poem this week. I looked at a few of the poetic forms I've bookmarked over the past months, but in the end, turned to one of my favorite forms, the acrostic .  Thanks for joining the Poetry Friday party today! Add your link to the party below. You are invited to the Inlinkz link party! Click here to enter
24 comments
Read more

Poetry Friday: Story Cubes Poems "Plot Problems"

 Welcome to Poetry Friday! Our host this week is Mary Lee. She's shared a wonderful poem of her own, one by Sandra Cisneros, a video and more in her post. You can find all that poetic goodness and links to the other participating poets over here on her blog. My Story Cubes poetry prompt this week had me a little stumped at first. In addition to trying to write fast, I'm also challenging myself to keep the order of the dice in my poem. So if the cauldron comes first, I'm trying to make it first thing I mention. Either I like multi-dimensional chess, or I like making things challenging for myself. Or maybe both! Here are this week's prompts: And here is my poem. Plot Problems First I drew a cauldron Bubbling full of poisoned brew. Then I drew a hungry hero Now I don’t know what to do. hmmm . . . .  I know how to fix this! Draw one big foot, then two. Run fast, my big foot hero! Go find some barbecue. © 2025, Elisabeth Norton, all rights reserved What about you? Have you ...
19 comments
Read more

Poetry Friday: Spooktober Concludes

It's been great fun this month writing Inktober-inspired haiku, senryu and tanka poems. You can see my prompt list and the first week of poems here , the second week of poems here , and the third week here . I hope you've enjoyed these mostly spooky, sometimes nature-inspired, occasionally random ( baseball playoffs! ) poems.  So now, without further ado, here is the Spooktacular conclusion to my Spooktober project! Our host for Poetry Friday this week is Linda at Teacher Dance . Hop on over to her blog for links to this week's round of poetic goodness.
20 comments
Read more