Warrior Writers NJ Workshop Goes Online

"Weathering a Storm" by Jan Barry

Warrior Writers NJ’s scheduled workshop for Sunday, March 22, 2020 took place via the web application Zoom from 12 noon-2pm.  The group adapted this virtual format in response to the social distancing measures directed by government and health officials to help curb the spread of the coronavirus known as Covid-19.  

Some of the work that was created is posted here. It not only demonstrates the continued creativity of military veterans and their families, but it also serves to document how this community is using creative writing, poetry and the arts to deal with the situational concerns and lifestyle changes that have come along with the outbreak of Covid-19.  

We encourage others to write, share and post literary pieces of their own, created during this period.

James Yee

Prompt: Spring

Never Doubt Spring

by Tara Krause

Yesterday the croci shot forth from the leaf mulch,
purple truth ascendant.

The neighbor’s forsythia yellowed their welcome
along the fence.

One fussing wren showed up, marking his territory,
while a titmouse began his song for companionship.

The night before the spring peepers broke into chorus,
while Bodhi my service dog barked her first bark, hackles up,
to run off the piebald doe prepping the corner of the
garden for her annual birthing rite.

All phenology of the signs of spring renewal.
It is time.

To plant peas and spinach,
to sow clover for the bees and
to shore up the slopes.

To direct sow the hardy annuals of
poppies, larkspur, calendula, cleome and cosmos.

The roses are already pruned,
now to be fertilized.

Maybe it’s too late for winter sowing the native perennials of
echinacea and rudbeckia, but worth a try.

It is time
to start the lasagna tins of seeds.

Never doubt spring.
Even in pandemics, quarantine & panic.

Spring in a Time of Pandemic

By Jan Barry

Will this be the last spring

For many of us—for our way of life?

So we’d better savor every flower,

Every bird song, every dawn—

I cried yesterday to see a Facebook post

By high school students singing

A choral song, each from their homes,

Spliced together in an incredible concert

Of “Over the Rainbow”—

Young voices singing joyously

Into an uncertain future,

Using the latest technology

To share the soaring beauty

Of the human voice

With amazing creativity—

A wondrous display of spring

Popping amid a winter of deadliness

Prompt: Who do you appreciate now?

Who do you appreciate now?

By James Yee

Two, four, six, eight!

Who do we appreciate?

Me. Me!

Yay Me!

I think I’m comfortable in my own skin.

I have to be, especially in this life, if I’m going to win.

Satisfied with my inner and outer self,

I’m no slouch, sittin’ dusty on somebody else’s shelf.

Happy with who I’ve become,

And proud of where I come from.

That being said, still got some ideas up in my head.

Continuing to improve myself in ways for the better,

Makes me even stronger to handle any kind of weather

Being myself is something I will define.

And it’s my choosing where, when and how to shine.

Or shine not at all, ‘cause that wouldn’t make me small.

I might listen to you, but ultimately I’m going to do what I want to do.

And if I don’t, then appreciating myself I won’t.

Be who you want to be.

And I’ll go on just being James Yee.

Who Do I Appreciate Now?

By Paula Rogovin

We know the doctors, nurses, and EMT’s

But let’s look behind them

to the layers and layers and layers

of – what should we call them?

The unnoticed frontliners

Let’s start with the farmworkers –

many forced to work to grow our food

so they can feed their families

Factory workers who make the things

we all need or think we need

Truck drivers, train engineers

Teachers remotely teaching the children

or those struggling to teach the children

whose reality is real, not virtual

mental health workers

restaurant workers

delivery workers…

Thank you

to the unnoticed frontline workers

Thank you for your service.

Wish your bosses would

thank you, too

with higher pay

   paid sick leave

       and medical care

Who Do I Appreciate Now?

By Tara Krause

The frontline:
first responders
as always
suit up on a daily basis
un-flagging.

“Thank you for your service,”
as said to veterans.

Yet now the seemingly invisible,
though ever present and giving,
step forward into the breach of pandemic:

The nurses,
the doctors,
the teachers,
the babysitters,
the home health aides,

All who bring the reality and risks of caring
into our imposed social distancing and virtual reality.

And the new “essential” frontliners:

The mail lady, who lugs up the porch stairs my emergency ration packages
of expresso, dark chocolate and cigarettes in quarantine;
the supermarket aisle restockers, who risk all for minimum wages
and no medical benefits;
the butcher, who scraped the last pound and a half of ground sirloin
off the grinder machine so that my service dog could continue her raw diet at least for another day;
the new workers at the Paterson plant, who now make the toilet paper to replenish the nations’s empty shelves.

The veteran in me almost heartbreakingly envies you:
“You do not have to kill to serve.”
 

Who Do I Appreciate?

By Nancy Nygard

I thought I would write about my garbage men, so under rated in our lives. 

But as day 8 of social distancing comes to an end, the thing I am appreciating is being able to be a part of my grandchildren's lives.  

We used to be with our grandson Zeke, 4 years old, every day, 5 days a week and at times

I would long for the carefree easy retirement days I'd heard about.

Now I have that time to walk and smell the roses, which I do and I love. 

But I face timed my son Sam and into the picture walked Zeke and he took my breath away!

So I most appreciate the human touch, especially of my 6 grandchildren.

We need to touch each other.

Peace and Love.

Prompt: Your own thoughts

Dear Coronavirus

By James Yee

Dear Coronavirus,

Thank you for cutting carbon emissions and reducing greenhouse gases. You’ve shown us that it can be done.  Our environment, right now, is better because of it.  If we could just figure out how to maintain and build upon this beneficial change.

Thank you for bringing families together, and for putting parents back into their children’s education and school work.  I’m glad you’ve help take those heavy backpacks off the shoulders of these kids.

While you don’t discriminate, thank you for pointing out that we as people still do.  You’ve shown that some of us are OK with calling you the “Chinese Virus”.

Thank You for forcing us to be more creative.

Hunkered Down

 By Jan Barry

Hunkered down in quarantine bunker—

The winter returns when I was

Shut in with double pneumonia—

No playing in the snow with my friends

Waving outside the window—

Somehow I survived that season,

That childhood scourge

In the time of TB isolation hospitals,

Chicken pox scaring kids’ faces,

Polio-withered legs—

I pushed myself as a scrawny, sickly kid

To run, play baseball, football, basketball—

Rather than lay around in a sick bed

Science

By Paula Rogovin

When the president

rejects science,

that equals murder to me

How many will die

  when the president holds

  hateful campaign rallies

  instead of science-based

  press conferences for all to see

We must rise up

by the millions and millions

even if it’s virtually