Lines – Bonnie Naradzay

This has been done before, standing in line for a long time.        
Think of Soviet women who queued for hours for bread.              
And I have learned about the lines of the Great Depression:        
men lined up for mind-numbing jobs at assembly lines.                

Think of Soviet women who stood for hours for bread                
or Akhmatova outside the prison waiting for news of her son.    
Here, men lined up for mind-numbing jobs at assembly lines.    
These days some have it easy – food deliveries, yoga online.        

Akhmatova outside the prison waited with women for news        
and the chance to send a loaf of bread, or a note, inside.           These days some have it easy – food deliveries, yoga online.        
Still, Camus said the plague is within us, here to stay.              
I have learned about the lines of the Great Depression               where hope envisions a loaf of bread, a note from inside.             
Camus wrote that the plague is within us, here to stay,               as it has always done: waiting in line for a long time.      

Copyright 2020  Bonnie Naradzay

“Lines” was originally posted on the blog – New Verse News  – on April 25, 2020. 

Bio:

Bonnie Naradzay’s poems have appeared most recently in American Journal of Poetry, New Letters (Pushcart nomination), Kenyon Review Online, RHINO, EPOCH, the Tampa Review, Tar River Poetry, New Verse News, Ekphrastic Review (http://www.ekphrastic.net/), and poems are slated to appear later this year in AGNI and elsewhere.  In 2017 she graduated from St John’s College (the Graduate Institute), in Annapolis, Maryland.  For many years she has led poetry workshops at a day shelter for the homeless (Miriam’s Kitchen) and at a retirement center, both in Washington, DC. 

Donation Appeal:

Throughout June and July, we will be presenting on this web site work by poets and artists responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. We hope you will find these works relevant, comforting and inspiring as we all cope with the economic and health-related fallout.

As you view the work on this site each day, we would like to encourage you to donate to the Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC). Their mission “ is to feed our neighbors in need by providing dignified access to supplemental groceries. AFAC is seeing a record number of families due to the COVID-19 pandemic as families who never thought they would ever be in need are now showing up at our doors for much needed food.”  And, in keeping with our hunger-focused efforts, you may also want to visit the Poetry X Hunger website where poems by many poets are posted and are being used by anti-hunger organizations.”

Throughout June and July, we will be presenting on this web site work by poets and artists responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. We hope you will find these works relevant, comforting and inspiring as we all cope with the economic and health-related fallout.

Please consider donating to AFAC. If you do, let us know which poet or artist inspired you so we can send you a personal thank you.