Our prompt for today (optional, as always) is to write an “occasional” poem. What’s that? Well, it’s a poem suited to, or written for, a particular occasion. This past January, lots of people who usually don’t encounter poetry got a dose when Amanda Gorman read a poem at President Biden’s inauguration. And then she followed it up with a poem at the Superbowl (not traditionally an event associated with verse!) The poem you write can be for an occasion in the past or the future, one important to you and your family (a wedding, a birth) or for an occasion in the public eye (the Olympics, perhaps?).

My poem today which I would say once we’ve overpowered the Corona virus

Twenty years ago, on the eve of a New Year
We stood together,
One world, 
One people
To witness a occurrence, once in a thousand years
We hid not our fears 
and worked out alternatives
Calculated  probabilities
of a possible catastrophe
We found the alchemy
We tested
We waited
At the stroke of midnight
on 31st December1999
and nothing happened-
Nothing that we feared
So, we woke up the next day
And went about living our lives, the way
we had always done
We had won!
The danger of an apocalypse had been stalled
We laughed at our fears, enthralled
at our preparedness
to avert, we celebrated our success

Twenty years later, come 2020
When we forgot how it feels to be united
If not in love, then in fear
We found ourselves on the brink of losing all that we held dear
our families, our friends, our freedom
A contagion had entered our kingdom
Making us vulnerable
and our air, without a filter, unbreathable
A wave had swept over one and all- 
Young and old, rich or poor, big and small
Black, white, brown, red
Like a shroud it spread
Had Nostradamus been right, we wondered
Was it a sign that the Mayank calendar had ended
But here we stand today, united
Our numbers though depleted
Tired but hopeful
A renewed strength
A faith
In ourselves, in each other
We proved we can and we will stand together

We must remember
Forever
'We will not go quietly into the night!
We will not vanish without a fight
We're going to live on
We're going to survive'
We fought the invasion
Now say, "We won, we won, we won!"
Let us say it loud and clear
Let it drown our fear
And let us begin to build again
All our nations
Stronger
Not with weapons that destroy each other
But let's strive to be self-sufficient
Let's focus on employment
Let's strengthen our healthcare
and let no plague, no virus dare
Every broken fence let us work to mend
and evade our end
To this let us in united voices say, 'Amen'
And again, 'Amen, Amen!'

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