Editor’s Note: Haverhill native Raymond F. Comeau takes time with his current poem, “We’re Thinking Justice,” to call attention to the essential workers of the pandemic.
Comeau previously reflected on phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in two poems published by WHAV, “Poem For A Pandemic” and “Waiting For A Cure.”
Now of Belmont, Comeau is a retired dean and current lecturer at Harvard University Extension School. He is also a trustee, emeritus, of the John Greenleaf Whittier Birthplace in Haverhill.
WE’RE THINKING JUSTICE
(a poetic drama in three acts)
Act I: Hope
What are you thinking
Essential workers
About a world that only some
Have greedily ruled
(With you left out)
But breaking like Humpty-Dumpty
Act 2: Sacrifice
What are you thinking
Who risk it all
Bagging groceries serving food
Delivering fixing cleaning
Inserting breathing tubes for us
And then go home
Act 3: Disappointment
What are you thinking
Pandemic heroes
As all the old powers
With all their old ways
Try desperately pasting
Humpty-Dumpty together again
Raymond Comeau © June 2021