Six months ago (March 26, 2020) the City of Kingston declared a State of Emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Not long after the City’s declaration seven local poets (Nancy Jo Cullen, Helen Humphreys, Kirsteen MacLeod, Sadiqa de Meijer, Ashley-Elizabeth Best, Sarah Tsiang, and Kingston Poet Laureate Jason Heroux) collaboratively wrote “Renga Of A Distanced Spring”. Kingston filmmaker Ali Dixon shot and animated the accompanying video. Presented by the Skeleton Park Arts Festival to mark the six month anniversary.
In a Renga, the contributing poets each writes a stanza. The order of participating poets is as follows: Jason Heroux (first and last), Nancy Jo Cullen, Helen Humpreys, Kirsteen MacLeod, Sadiqa de Meijer, Ashley-Elizabeth Best, and Sarah Tsiang.
Renga Of A Distanced Spring
Stay home cloud, the sky
is closed and there is no wind,
but you’re not alone.
Through the window a sparrow,
her song as large as summer.
Purple crocus, April snow.
The confusion of what
will stay or pass.
Frogs resurge in icy ponds,
peep their song: it all comes back.
Returned to sender,
now its postage
is a raindrop tracing a twig.
Midges quiver sunspots at
dusk spilling a cool spring air.
Clouds of midges:
joyous crowd, small bodies
swim through our shared sea of air.
New morning at the corner
of Division and Union.