Using time wisely during COVID
I am crying at my desk, writing poetry
Between tasks, remembering my afternoon
Collage of patients’ faces,
Wondering what’s ahead for them. For all of us.
No one would pay me to cry, or write poetry.
They would deem it nonbillable hours.
But it is one of those times
I don’t know what else to do.
We are living in dangerous times.
No one can escape it.
We can only try to
avoid- avoid- avoid
And I feel very small, like a field mouse.
It is all I can do to
Blend in and hope the great
Horned owl will pass me over,
Not realizing his target is close and
Those otherworldly yellow eyes
Will focus somewhere else
And I will sleep
safe- safe- safe
Wrapped in a merciful sky one more night.
A poem written by Marianne A. Broyles, who has been a nurse for 16 years, mostly in the field of inpatient behavioral health. She is also a writer and has published two books of poetry, The Red Window (West End Press, 2008) and Liquid Mercury Girl (Mongrel Empire Press, 2018). She is interested
in how the process of writing benefits mental health and an overall sense of well-being and was able to research this further while working at Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital in Nashville, TN, as a recipient of its nurse scholar grant.