Mary Edgar May, part of WCCM Australia sent a series called “My Pandemic Poems”. She explains her connection with the Community and how she produced this creative work:
As a significant part of my contemplative prayerful spirituality, I have practiced meditation personally and with a weekly group within the John Main tradition for 26 years. The poems I sent were part of a group presentation to our U3A (University of the Third Age) from the Writing Poetry class I tutor. We have continued meeting via Zoom during restrictions. The pandemic has created time and psychic space to reappraise how we are to live as humans dependent on, and related to the whole universe. My poetry arises as a sensate, meditative and cognitive response to observations and significant questions posed by everyday personal, social and global concerns. This dialectic is shaped by daily labyrinth walks, gardening, biblical and ecotheological reflection, professional and life experience in microbiology, psychotherapy and medical mission.
Earth Day 22 April 2020
By Mary Edgar May
I circle my reflective path, alert
to each subtle move without, within.
Persimmon laughs in blushing spectacle
dancing with the final mandarin.
Fig tree sings praise, the air purple-infused
inviting bats to feast tonight at will
guided by fragrant moonlight to their share
of Earth’s largess, ecstatic joys distill.
False comfort pedlars fall before the truth
that all connects organically brought home,
yet lives depend on quarantine from life
humanity dispersed, staying alone.
Uncertainty and overwhelming fear
assail a normal sense of what is real
break rhythms of predictable control
wide open opportunities reveal.
Let this apocalypse be true unveiling
exposing us to see what we deny—
the flaws and fissures within human systems,
our eagle plagues on all that we rely.
Let us learn from dire consequences
as vested interests disdain beggarhood,
set limits, heal, find meaning in the whole,
contribute, and choose leaders, for the good.
Let sun and moon shine bright on Earth renewed,
with heavens, soils and waters fresh and free
with healing trees that grant us breathing space,
wisdom and Spirit for new ways to be.
Three Haikus
By Mary Edgar May
every dark doorway
a threshold between two worlds
openness the key
this is not our world
we are Earth’s humanity
embrace our true place
dull brown patiently
hidden sheltering in place
beauty will emerge
Liminal Space
By Mary Edgar May
On one side of the door the cool fresh air
Blue skies suffused with yellow light invite
Tranquility, but on this side the words
Of pestilence resound, demanding bans.
On one side of the screen, the green-garbed workers
Heap graves with disrespected dead, while here
The days and nights are filled with endless dread
As we are thrust into unwanted space.
Pandemic shock o’erwhelms, life shrinks, dissolves
We are not where or who we were before
We know not how or where we will end up
We thought our life was free, we had control
Everything still possible to us
But now discomforted, destabilised
Old touchstones, habits, comforts in the past
Confined in exile, future compromised.
At this threshold, we can see so well
Our failure to be modest, unprepared
We hear imperatives when normalcy
Is questioned and we must all respond
We may deny and turn our face away
Sleep-walking days with mind-numbing pursuits
Or seek escape from our unwanted state
Despite the dreadful costs to others’ fate.
Betwixt, between, uncertain, commingled
In twilight, let us courage take and hear
Redeeming invitations to lay down
Demands, distractions, platitudes, to name
Our fears, distress, engage all loss and grief
To wait, to be, open and vulnerable
To struggle with the hidden side of things
Attending carefully to all that comes.
Though feeling far from such, we’re graced to find
That we bear Presence, honoured in ourselves
Others, and all the Universe, of God.
This Spirit-spacetime longs to bring to birth
A trusting of the Real beyond ourselves
A source of freedom, wiser ways to act
Emerging beauty, healing and fresh ways
Of meaning-making, with a generous gaze.
To find such changes in the world, in us
Of purpose, vision and priorities,
shows us so vividly, through tragedy
that life is always fluid and transitional.
And when the cure is found and we emerge
Into a better world to make, let us
Humbly take less for granted and remain
more just and kind, embrace unfolding good.
