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POETRY IN THE PLAGUE YEAR

Poems written during the Coronavirus Outbreak 2020

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Chad Norman

Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada

 

 

Chad Norman lives beside the high-tides of the Bay of Fundy, Truro, Nova Scotia. 

He has given talks and readings in Denmark, Sweden, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, America, and across Canada.

His poems appear in publications around the world and have been translated into Danish, Albanian,  Romanian, Turkish, and Italian.

His collections are Selected & New Poems ( Mosaic Press), and Squall: Poems In The Voice Of Mary Shelley, is now out from Guernica Editions.

 

 Poem completed 25th May 2020

 

 

A FRIEND REQUEST FOR PHILIPPE PETIT *

 

 

A reason to reach out, I have many.

 

Among all that you shared after the towers

the one answer, " Why? There is no why!"

 

And me, then, saying, "How can there be no why?"

or even, "What! No why?" I guess I will learn

the answer by pressing a button

I use to share hope during this duration

caused by a virus with actual intentions,

keeping us from our dreams, from our families,

a button found among many buttons

set in some kind of order on the keyboard

now truly a daily immediate lifeline.

 

A need, if you will. Already hung over our lives,

connected to one side of the virus and the other

we can call beginning and ending,

a wire we kind of are all out on

holding our custom made balancing poles,

eyes on what each of us dare look at

being at so many different heights, able

to form smiles under our masked faces.

 

Philippe, I wonder if you will accept my request?

I promise I have no intention to ask you why

about the predictions, when the virus will end.

 

I just want a new friend, no matter the bridge,

no matter the cathedral, no matter the artist,

someone I, being out here using my flat feet

to understand each step will be taken, made

successfully, without doubt, willing to wait

for the others in front of me who also dare

walk the belief we can be one with the wire.

 

*Tightrope walker