Cov-Vadis(Quo Vadis, Latin) Poem by Pallavi Ram

COVID where are you marching?
December twenty nineteen
Deerhurst for winter vacationing
Some skiing, snowshoeing,
Over priced New Year's party notwithstanding!

Silent endemic raging,
China obfuscating,
Celebrating twenty twenty-new year
Iran shoots down that jet you hear?
Canada mourning.
COVID are you approaching?

January travel-India
Meeting of sister-media
Bengaluru springtime with mother-none other
Gandhi Bazaar & Lalbagh walks
What dosas, what talks
What family hospitality
What shopping & holiday vitality
COVID are you approaching?

Chinese virus world reckons
Modi to Jinping - PPE shipment beckons
Life's provoking
Traffic's stoking, choking
Contrails smoking
Nature's rasping, gasping
COVID are you clasping, grasping?

First case spotted in India
It's trivia
Returning back to Canada
Breathlessly coughing traveler
Sitting behind this passenger
My mind whispers
Maybe Corona? It snickers

Normalcy at home
Shalom?
Schools still open, SAT still bespoken
Clueless about what's coming, thrumming, drumming

February rolling into March
Things become grim & parched
Our birthdays are on the horizon
Yet another year makes you wizen?

W.H.O still evasive
To the RNA that's mutated & invasive
To the pandemic that's pervasive
BAM! Everything unraveling
Malls & restaurants closing
Shops & retail reposing
No nail salons no mani-pedi, waxing
No spas no relaxing
No hair salons no coiffure
No sports no concerts no theatre
Work ceasing
Time freezing
Staying in, distancing,
Staying in, disinfecting,
The silence, deafening
COVID are you crippling?

Loud pandemic decrying
People sighing, dying
Essential workers battling
Gig workers braving
Economy collapsing
COVID decimating, terrifying
Hell on earth -
Revenge of the Sith?
Dante's Inferno in with.

April rolling into May
Control nay, nay
No vaccine no antiviral headway
Humanity's karma
This COVID dharma
Nature healing
Birds freewheeling
Animals revealing
Habitats resuscitating
COVID facilitating,
Not erasing,
But saying -
‘I'll be back'
In the air sack!