Julene Tripp Weaver

 

Julene Tripp Weaver,
a native New Yorker lives in Seattle, where she writes and has a psychotherapy practice. She has studied Chinese and Western herbal medicine, is certified a green witch in the Wise Woman Tradition, and wildcrafts for personal use. Her second full size poetry book, truth be bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS, was nominated for a Lambda and won the Bisexual Book Award. Find more of her work at www.julenetrippweaver.com. Twitter: @trippweavepoet

 

Cycle of Death

In the silent gap paralysis
no ringing no singing
roll over in the coffin
the lid closes with a thud

more than a game
it’s a death sentence
we’ve been slammed into
Corona with fever spikes

no-signal germ-glitter
cascading on cardboard
plastic bags in grocery
stores. Pray to St. Corona

the saint of pandemics
expect to be stricken
hope to survive
despite age.

Throw yourself to what your heart
craves—learn what is dead
to you—I never wanted to be
a gardener, a lack of interest

in the time to tend
a deadness in my stillness
like a child forced to play.
This heart desires poems,

and life-force passion
to take that trip missed
because of Corona,
revisit a familiar home.

Love awakens us
brings us through the unspeakable
if we survive we will rebuild
starting from dead.