A Prayer in the Time of COVID

A year ago I came across a photo taken in pre-COVID times of people delighted to be cooling off in New York City, standing among spraying jets of water. This poem, as with all Found Poetry, is from words reframed and given new meaning. They come from the sidebar accompanying the photograph. And with COVID starting to ease, the prayer just might be attainable.

A Prayer in the Time of COVID

                 A Found Poem, Independence Day,

                 Amy Weiss-Meyer, The Atlantic,

                 July/August 2020

Messiah,

Bring back the jubilant highs

of carefree camera shots.

The honored tradition of standing

with strangers:

                        - the homeless,

                 the shirtless, the drenched -

those cooling-off atop fountain grates

                    in city parks.

Recall the easy sociability of others

orbiting the perimeter of urban life,

the playful water, the palpable pleasure.

Frame me joyful on a summer's night.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor