by Bacopa Literary Review 2022 Poetry contributor Helen Bournas-Ney
In the first year of the pandemic, before there were
vaccines and therapies, or anything we thought could help—we were careful and
in retreat from the world most of the time in our apartment in New York City.
During this period, my husband and I would sometimes venture forth to the open
spaces behind our apartment building to get some sun and to see our masked
friends and neighbors walk by. We would take our retro folding chairs with us
and try to enjoy what we could during those stressful days.
As the afternoons wore on and this grassy area was thrown into shade, we would pick up
our folding chairs and follow the sun, moving to our parking lot, which was
unshaded by trees and so much warmer.
In that parking lot, the sun would warm us and we would feel the joy of the day, an extended day. This felt like a short-lived but lovely escape from the chaos and fear surrounding us in the early months of lockdown. Here you could forget about it all and just lift your face to the sun.
Small pleasures. And looking where to find them—to figure out just where to put my chair. / I think it must be anywhere that sun allows.
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Helen Bournas-Ney was born in Ikaria, Greece, and grew up in New York City. She received the Anais Nin Award for her work on Rimbaud and George Seferis. Most recently, her work has appeared in Plume Online, The Ekphrastic Review, Ekphrastic Writing Responses: Edward Hopper (18th poem down on the page), One Sentence Poems, Mom Egg Review, and the anthology "Plume Poetry, 7."
Read Bournas-Ney's "Virtual Season: 2020" and other fine Poetry, Prose Poetry,
Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction in Bacopa Literary Review 2021
