Photo by Emily Ferrara
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Joseph Kleponis taught English and American Literature in schools north of Boston. He is a member of the Grey Court Poets, a community poetry group in Methuen, MA. His poetry has appeared in various online and print publications such as the Aurorean, Boston Literary Magazine, Eucalypt, Leaflet: the Journal of the New England Association of Teachers of English, Methuen Life, Muddy River Poetry Review, and The Penmen Review of Southern New Hampshire University.
Still Life in the Time of Virus
by Joseph Kleponis
There is the cliché
of rosy fingered dawn
pushing away
the curtains of night.
There is morning birdsong,
for me
but not for me.
There is the sky
perhaps no bluer than it has been
yet bluer still.
There are the church bells;
I heard them before;
I hear them again.
There are the walkers
walking together
but apart.
There are the neighbors
but not at the fence line.
There is a smudge in the trees,
crows staging
as evening calls.
There are the icy chips of stars
across the sky,
still indifferent from afar.
There is this stillness
an unusual stillness
that is now no longer new.