Bravery-20 and 4087 a Response, 5 O’Clock Poems about COVID-19 by Stephen Fuller with Audio

By Stephen, April 2, 2020

I dedicate Bravery-20 to my friends and former colleagues working at Military Sealift Command who worked tirelessly to get MERCY and COMFORT underway and up to Seattle and New York led by a good friend and former colleague. These are true American Heroes, most of them civilians who did not sign up to fight a war, but are now on the frontlines of the defining battle of our age. Be proud of the Mariners and Sailors, be inspired by their Bravery-20, and do your part, whatever that might be.

4087 A Response
Hands?
Yours tremble?
Mine shake
Like glass
Wants broken
Into shards
And
Crushed under foot
To return to sand
Unmelt me
But first
Pick a shard
Of me
To help carve
Names,
so many…
So many
So many
So many
Wake me from my
Nightly nightmare
Screaming, I don’t
Want it’s memory
So many
So many
So many
Pick my shard
Off the ground
And carve
Bravery-20
find it heart,
so urgently
and seriously
needed today,
I use Adverbs
when I know I should not,
but to draw out a Point,
and make pause
ones whose ire raised
at my blunder
might realize, 
today, 
we
urgently
seriously
need their hearts
my heart and yours
and his and hers...
And so on and so on...
to catch Bravery-20 like a virus
to indiscriminately and exponentially
share hope like a vaccine