When I wrote this pandemic poem, A Spoonful of Honey,  I was thinking about a very close friend that I haven’t been able to see during the pandemic years because they live in another country  Somehow a computer chat, just isn’t the same.  I miss those real moments of truth and connection, like sitting in the same room, talking about simple, random things that come up,  like how the world is burning, the time he flew to Peru on a whim and tried ayahuasca, potatoes, chickens and global warming. There’s an energy that we just can’t feel through a computer. One that can only be felt when we sit beside someone else that we care about and are able to lean in to and support one another.

These are the moments that  I’ve really been missing and find myself yearning for.

A Spoon Full of Honey 

I’ll find you in the gardens 

where the once lush meadows

have darkened and 

the rain has finally stopped, 

plants dripping wet, 

in a world of perpetual Spring, 

and translated trees, 

on the other side of the stars. 

I’ll dream about sitting 

on a covered porch, 

sipping lemon tea, and you

bringing me a spoonful 

of fresh honey.

We’ll sing to Lady Lakshmi 

and talk about chickens and potatoes 

and how all the rivers have shrivelled

and the blackened pastures have turned to dust.

I’ll call out to you from the ocean 

weaving wisdom through water 

like Mother Moon, dancing 

with flora nymphs in time,

 to the sound of crashing waves, 

 ‘Thank you, my dear friend,

for staying tied to my heart.’

Mary Ann Burrows