I found this poem in an anthology called How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. The editor is James Crews, but I picked it up because the foreword is by Ross Gay, who is an amazing poet in his own right. Ross Gay suggests that witnessing the world is a way of making the world, especially if we make poetry from that witnessing. This poem seems to me to do that.
By the way, I've linked to the poet's own blog, where the title of this poem is Against Panic and Pandemic. I'm not sure why she changed it for this anthology (or if the editor did it for her).
by Molly Fisk
You recall those times, I know you do, when the sun
lifted its weight over a small rise to warm your face,
when a parched day finally broke open, real rain
sluicing down the sidewalk, rattling city maples
and you so sure the end was here, life a house of cards
tipped over, falling, hope's last breath extinguished
in a bitter wind. Oh, friend, search your memory again —
beauty and relief are still there, only sleeping.
This reminds me of a beautiful story called Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. I like how she calls the person she's speaking to "friend."
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