A Plate of Pandemic

Published Semi-annually on the Solstices 

Header plates

Creativity in Times of Crisis

Gold Star Mothers

We ended up here by accident,

not knowing John Otto named it Gold Star Canyon

to honor mothers of sons who died in World War I.

 

Not only is today Mother’s Day, it’s my son’s 19th birthday,

my son who is fighting age, but has not been called to war;

has instead been called home from college

to wait out the coronavirus pandemic.

 

He’s been listening to a World War I podcast,

and we’re watching 1917 this afternoon,

so our presence here feels serendipitous.

 

We talk about the war

as we climb the steep trail that winds around

boulders, cactus, and Utah juniper.

 

He tells me about the rats and bleakness of the front,

about the yellow, toxic pools of water —

sometimes the only thing to drink even though

it was burdened by the bodies of dead soldiers.

 

As we talk, I notice a few tiny white daisies clinging

to the dusty soil, blooming despite the drought

like small, delicate snowflakes,

and I wonder if there were any little miracles

like this at the front.

 

It’s the kind of day a soldier

would look back on with fondness,

when time and words float by as easily

as the bright white clouds in the azure sky overhead.

 

I gaze up at them and wonder how I got so lucky

to have my son at home telling me about a war

instead of being lost to one,

and I feel myself start to flutter into bloom

like those tiny white daisies

despite the drought, and despite the pandemic.

 

I bloom for all those mothers

who lost all those sons

and never got another day

like this one.

Jill Burkey
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