Weight of the Dead
By Linda Conroy
So many fallen from pandemic these sad years,
with no time spared for kin to contemplate,
and those who didn’t like their earthly life
and cut it off, those who bled, grew white
and wizened, bent and faint, those who cried
not wanting to go yet, or whimpered, shot
before their time was spent in lively tasks,
those paled by famine, weak with old hunger,
crushed by tipping weight, choked, strangled,
killed by chemicals, by deliberate hand or fate,
or washed away by power of water, rushing.
I think of them, those known and unknown,
and Sister, missed the virus, gone too soon,
will her soft voice find a way back home?
Linda Conroy is a retired social worker from Bellingham Washington, with an MEd in adult education administration from Western Washington University. She likes to write poetry that portrays the simplicity and complexity of the natural world and of behaviors that make us human. She has self-published two poetry collections, Ordinary Signs, (Village Books, 2019) and Familiar Sky, (Village Books, 2022.) Her poetry has appeared in many journals.