I am trying yet again to organize my book collection while sheltered in place, and have turned up a forgotten nugget: “Good Poems for Hard Times,” a collection of poems compiled by Garrison Keillor. He ends his introduction with these lines, “These poems describe a common life. It is good to know this. I hope you take courage from it.” Agreed. The virus can rob us of much but it can never rob us of certain powers we possess. Here then are powers that poetry teaches that everyone has and that can never be stripped away. Ever.

Power No. 1: The Power of Being There

We despair. We ask ourselves: How can I make things better? I am not a first responder or a nurse or a Dr. Anthony Fauci. But we can make things better even if it is just being there for another. This sentiment is profoundly expressed in Gregory Djanikian’s “Children’s Hospital, Emergency Room.” He takes his injured daughter to an emergency room:

You do not want to be here

You wish it were you

The doctor is stitching up

It is a cut on the chin, fixable

This time it is deep enough.