22 October 2025

Pandemic memories, 3 years later


 

Mortuary Trucks in New York City in April 2020 by Archer West

I was happy to stay home during the pandemic—
a retired recluse, home was my comfort zone.
Besides, Zoom came out of nowhere, and soon
I was attending more meetings than ever before.
 
News was full of the bravery of medical
personnel who deployed ventilators and stayed
in hospitals with barely enough masks to block infection
spread by air or proximately or maybe touching. 
 
At first, visitors weren’t allowed, increasing the horror
of Covid-19, ventilator, isolation, and potential death.
I became obsessed with the number of dead bodies.
I became obsessed with the burial of the dead.
 
In New York City, morgues couldn’t keep up,
so the city rented refrigerator trucks to handle
the overflow, over 2000 dead in the first four months. 
Bodies were kept “on ice” until they could be buried.
 
Unidentified bodies were kept for variable lengths of time
before burial in mass graves on Hart Island, NYC’s potter’s
field.  Heart Island, I told myself, burial Is a kindness
to those waiting, to both the living and the dead.


For Mary's prompt "The Days We Stayed Apart" at What's Going On? 


See also, from 6 May 2020, "Burying the Dead"

 

My blog poems are rough drafts.
Please respect my copyright.
© 2025 Susan L. Chast

7 comments:

  1. Sumana Roy10/22/2025 5:26 AM

    A harrowing time indeed! And I feel it strange that we did survive the onslaught. Ventilators, masks, isolation, morgues, burial of the dead---we lived in these words at the time. I had lost a few friends and acquaintances to Covid-19. The second stanza beautifully describes the indomitable human spirit.

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  2. Mary10/22/2025 9:35 AM

    Yes, thank goodness for Zoom at that time, a way to connect with family or friends when one didn't feel safe being out and about. Yes, I remember the sights of refrigerator trucks holding dead bodies in NYC. Chilling images that the words of your poem bring back to my mind. Seems so surreal now. I appreciate the word play - 'hart' and 'heart.' And, yes, sometimes burial was indeed a kindness.

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  3. Jae Rose10/22/2025 11:10 AM

    What a stark image and equally sobering poem - Jae

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  4. Sherry Blue Sky10/22/2025 12:04 PM

    I am a happy recluse too so staying home was no hardship for me. As you say, our comfort zone. The numbers of the dead in the United States was terrible. I watched in horror. So lonely those who died alone and could not even be buried right away. It was interesting seeing the pandemic through your eyes, Susan.

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  5. Jim10/23/2025 12:37 AM

    Sad, sad, sad. A very mean disease. We both caught, Mrs. first and me from her, on a cruise ship. You did the right thing, we rushed thing so too soon, Once quarantined we lost track of the others. Getting off the ship we were still quarantined, her one more day, me six more, in a hotel.

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  6. Intelliblog10/23/2025 2:21 AM

    A terrible time for all of us, Susan; and for me it brought chilling memories of all I had read of the Great Plague in Europe - and that was much worse than we had to deal with during COVID. I'm now thinking of horrible new viruses that lurk in the background - Ebola, for example. And even more chilling now is the thought that some of these deadly viruses are being developed by maniac dictators as biological warfare agents...

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  7. purplepeninportland.com10/29/2025 8:18 PM

    A nightmare time of life. I was also obsessed with the number of people dying every day.

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