by Qin Sun Stubis
The World Within the Word Pandemic
If you’re feeling somewhat sad and manic,
don’t just stay home and idly panic.
Why not divert yourself, instead,
with a game to map the world of words within the word “pandemic“?
Isolation can dampen anyone’s day.
Loneliness is madewith pain.
You wish to nap or pace the time away
until life is normal yet again.
We’ve paid too dear a price
How many still have yet to die?
With the devil’s own dice, it gambles with our lives
The virus is a damn madman — or to some, a lie.
No use to wait idly by,
our responses anemic, pained, or softly whined.
But through the power of each unbounded mind,
instead, fight for the pandemic to be fully defined.
It’s time for the enemy to be undermined.
Arouse the brave penman within you
Mince no words to conquer this sorrow
and release the pain of all that emotion
from your life today and tomorrow
So, hold your pen tight,
whether you’re mice or men, capedheroes, or an academic.
Take up the fight wherever you’ve pitched your camp
and battle with words
to mend our souls, even dance away the fear
until the end of this wretched pandemic.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Qin Sun Stubis is a Chinese-American writer living in the Washington, D.C. area. She is a newspaper columnist and writes poems, essays, short stories and original Chinese Tall Tales inspired by traditional Asian themes. She has also finished a full-length historical memoir. Born in Shanghai and brought up during the turbulence of the Cultural Revolution, Stubis brings her thoughtful, lyrical and gently humorous style to bear on a wide variety of topics, inflected with both Eastern and Western flavors in ways that transcend geography to touch hearts and reveal universal truths.