A Savage in Quarantine: more light poems for dark times

Gertrude Abercrombie

A Savage in Quarantine

I’ve lost all traces of civilized life

All of my decorum

I plunge a knife into Skippy, I lick it until it shines

I eat standing up,

I don’t bother with bread

Or worry about contamination.

I am alone, 

Defiant

Primitive.

I shock myself

Eating olives straight from the jar,

Not even a plate!

No one observes

How I grab meat with my fingers like a cave-girl

With no other cave-dwellers

To tame me. 

— Carla Sarett, San Francisco, April 2020

Morning Meditation in Quarantine by Carla Sarett

Beginner’s Mind.

Start from scratch. 

Do not assume where the mind is headed

It just might go to yesterday’s burnt chicken thighs.

Half an hour, the difference between triumph 

....and failure!

Now I’ll have to brave the market and face the crowds, 

They’re hoarding gluten-free bread and toilet paper,

For their season of discontent and Netflix 

Reading about Tom and Rita’s lovely virus.

I am not sure why everyone’s in a state, 

About a state that’s never permanent,

And why should it be? 

It’s frittered away in the good times,

Therapised in the bad, with doctors and faith healers and snake oil.

Mostly snake oil.

Well, snake oil is fun,

Maybe I’ll try it for dinner.

Carla Sarett, April 2020

For laughs only: Ode to Quarantine

Not much to do in Quarantine, except have a laugh.

Ode to Quarantine

Am I the only woman

Who during Quarantine

Takes out her sponge and bucket

And madly starts to clean?

Louise Stanley, “Falling on Hard Times”

I could improve my mind

I could memorize a poem

Instead of dusting baseboards

And tidying my home

But Shakespeare and Homer

I fear will be unread

While I embark on laundry

And vacuuming my bed

Some may think it curious

To make my home pristine

When no one gets to visit me

And all my work’s unseen

But visitors would only scuff

My newly polished floor

So let me go on cleaning

At least a few days more.

Carla Sarett, March 2020