by poetrybyheart.me@poetrybyheart.me
We sat socially distant beside the pool
Now drained and dressed in its blue winter tarp
Pool’s water once present now disappeared
Like the beloved woman who died this past year
Whom the Greenbriar family gathered to remember
Pat was our mentor, house mother and friend
Offering resources for solving dilemmas
Giving hugs when needed and sharing news
The stories we shared revealed how we loved her
This woman our rock and our joy
Our stories told also another tale
Pictured a community Pat helped form and enrich
People helping neighbors, exchanging smiles
Welcoming newcomers, sharing wonderful meals
A rich legacy Pat bequeathed us
Community Memories Poetry Precious Legacy The Greenbriar Family The Greenbriar Swimmimg Pool
by poetrybyheart.me@poetrybyheart.me
Tomorrow they empty the pool
Drain away our summer oasis
Silence the happy voices
Leave us to start over again
For a while things seemed almost normal
People exercised, floated, swam laps
Children splashed while moms supervised
Many stretched out on chairs in the sun
Now we reenter a virtual world
Zoom connects us for learning and fun
School is in session a variety of ways
We will discover new ways life can go on
A suffering world Covid-19 Hope Poetry The Greenbriar Swimmimg Pool
by poetrybyheart.me@poetrybyheart.me
The High Tech Pool Company is putting in a new swimming pool for my apartment building. Keeping up with their daily progress is one of the things I do while I am socially distancing myself.
Today I saw that the workers had put up a tent – the fancy square kind with a triangular top – in the empty shallow end of the pool and were eating lunch. I haven’t seen this before. But the clock said noon so what else would they be doing?
Just for Fun The coronavirus The Greenbriar Swimmimg Pool View from my window
by poetrybyheart.me@poetrybyheart.me
At breakfast time this morning the noise began. Lately the hardware store that backs up to the street behind my apartment has been repairing damage caused by a van making deliveries to the Dollar Store next door. The side mirror of the van clipped one of the wooden posts supporting the roof of the hardware store’s loading dock and the roof collapsed. But this noise sounded different.
One of my favorite things about the apartment building I live in is the swimming pool behind it. The word game ladies and I play at a table under a tree beside the water, people do group exercises and swim laps, children splash and some people just sun bathe. It is getting old, like so many of us. The concrete surrounding the pool is broken and wobbly to walk on. The management has decided to build a new pool. The noise I hear is the buzz saw breaking up the cracked concrete around the pool.
We didn’t know when construction would begin. And here in the middle of the week when the stock market keeps threatening to crash, and our ordinary days have been restructured to keep us home and safe from the coronavirus, they are breaking ground for our promised swimming pool. It is an unnecessary luxury, though it keeps construction workers employed. And it somehow brings to my mind Nero fiddling while Rome was burning.
Change The coronavirus The Greenbriar Swimmimg Pool View from my window
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