Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “COVID Correction” by Katerina Fretwell, which first appeared in Poetry Pause in September 2020.

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COVID Correction

By Katerina Fretwell

Mother Nature unwrinkles her brow,

cleansed of pesky jet contrails.

Cargo and cruise ships’ scarcity unclogs

nature’s veins of garroting particles,

waters less bitingly torrid regain

earth’s AC rhythm: sea-cloud-rain-sea-cloud …

Her desiccated, desertified quilts,

re-greened, cradle seed, feed, herbs.

But Covid’s cruel – climate refugees and

heroes die beside eco-criminals.

Tipping point teeters on Covid’s blood-red,

prickly surface, our wake-up shock

admitted only in extremity.

We’re cloistered – our home exhales in relief.

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Copyright © Katerina Fretwell

Previously published in Holy in My Nature (Silver Bow Publishing 2024). First appeared in Poetry Pause on September 14, 2020.

Katerina Vaughan Fretwell’s 11th book, Familiar and Forgiveness, Ace of Swords, is forthcoming on May 21, 2024; her 10th, Holy in My Nature, Silver Bow Publishing, is now available. Her ninth is We Are Malala Inanna 2019; her eighth, Dancing on a Pin, Inanna 2015, was part of the International Festival of Authors Battle of the Bards, and 5 of the poems placed Runner Up in subTerrain’s Outsider Poetry Contest. She has poems in Devour, Poems in Response to Peril, and Love Lies Bleeding. Her art, Group of Twelve, features 12 Toronto poets.

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