Grade school, high school, college classes,
Won't you please move closer? Now, say, "Cheese"!
Groups enshrined in photographs-es,
Weddings, dinners—won’t you please
Move in closer? Now, say, “Cheese”!
COVID came and stayed, forever,
No more squeezing in together.
Once we all were in the room,
Now we all depend on Zoom.
Khati Hendry
Characterizations:
funny, moving, right on!, well written
Your poem and group photo says it all, Khati. We can no longer gather together and smile for the camera. We live our lives on a Zoom screen, even taking photos there. “Say Cheese” is just how we get the corners of our mouths to turn up into that forced smile.
Funny how the simplest things have changed. Of course we have shared microbes forever, to our benefit and detriment both, but just taking a picture never seemed like a risk until recently.
So true, Khati. I have started to save screen shots of some zooms with family and close friends. Wonder if/when we will all be able to squeeze in together again.
It is pretty cool that we CAN take a screen shot, and “get together” with picture and sound almost for free over untold distance. But not the same.
Wonderful Khati, and so true!
And bless Zoom, it’s better than nothing!
Thanks Dana! It has been a real boon to have technology at our disposal for sure—Retrospect included. But we sure miss our water now that the well has run dry.
Gathering in person now seems very quaint, Khati, and your poem captures the feelings perfectly. At lease we can do screen shots in Zoom to “codify” our online conversations and meetings. Not up to in person, but certainly better than nothing.
So many things seem quaint anymore. I almost hesitate to open my mouth. Not to mention snail mail communications. It was a revelation when I realized such a thing was possible, and I admit I have actually taken a photo of the page as another approach to saving it in the PC (if zooming on PC).
I am (uncharacteristically) optimistic re COVID; I think the omicron variant is going to find everyone by the end of summer, cull the antivaxx flat-earthers a bit and leave us all with sufficient immunity to render it a nuisance instead of a tragedy. Having nearly everyone with at least some resistance will also get the little bastard’s reproductive rate sub-logarithmic.
That is certainly the hope, and it is possible. At least until some more dastardly variant looms in omicron’s place, that evades the vaccines and natural immunity to date. How fragile we are.
Thanx Dave for your optimistic take on our Covid nightmare, may your be absolutely right!
And one day please explain to me what goes on in the heads of the anti-vax flat-earthers.
Terrific RetroFlash, Khati! I particularly like it when others also try to turn them into rhyming poems. And yours is not only very clever (with a few strained rhymes, I’d delighted to see), but it makes its point perfectly.
Like others, I consider Zoom to be the very definition of a mixed blessing.
I love your poem, Khati! And your rhyming of “college classes” with “photographs-es” seems very Ogden Nash-ian. I can’t spot you in the picture of the Zoom though – is it one of yours, or just a stock photo?
Just a stock photo—and no one has enough gray hair to qualify for most of my zooms anyway. Glad you appreciated the twisted rhymes.
Each one of your scanning retroflashes evoked a song in my head, Khati! This time it’s a ditty by Herman’s Hermits, can’t remember the title! Thanks for the rhyme and the Zoom pic!
I would probably recognize a Herman’s Hermits song, but if I was channeling that, it was subconsciously. Glad you enjoyed the rhymes!
it was Bus Stop by the Hollies (check out the sexism, 1966)
Lyrics
Bus stop, wet day, she’s there, I say
“Please, share my umbrella”
Bus stop, bus goes, she stays, love grows
Under my umbrella
All that summer, we enjoyed it
Wind and rain and shine
And that umbrella, we employed it
By August, she was mine
Every mornin’, I would see her waiting at the stop
Sometimes she’d shopped and she would show me what she bought
All the people stared as if we were both quite insane
Someday my name and hers are going to be the same
Know the song well. Definitely not HH. A bit bubble gummy, which is HH, but with a minor note. Sexism is pretty rampant so that one didn’t impress me as out of the ordinary ha ha.
Very bubble gummy as I recall. Thanks for using that term. We used it to dismiss many a phony commercial attempt at hip, as I’m sure you did. Silly me, I’m trying to describe the heady mixture of political righteousness and sexism in this new novel I’m writing. Tough topic to tackle. Wish me luck!
Good luck with your project—not easy to strike the right tone and balance there. I hope you have experts in lived experience to look over your shoulder. Cheers.
Khati… I lived it. Let’s just say I was paddling along the surf line when second wave feminism hit.
https://www.myretrospect.com/?s=Tidal+Wave
And my partner, Susan was, is, and ever will be a remarkable feminist. Here’s a recent blog post she wrote on Roe v Wade: https://susanrubinwriter.com/2022/01/22/about-that-last-anniversary-of-roe/
Should be a great read!
Totally loved Susan’s post—it’s outrageous on so many levels, what the Republican Taliban is doing. I, and most women, either have our own abortion experiences or know someone else’s. And as a medical professional, the ignorance and inhumanity is stunning.
Again thanksfor reading! Susan writes like a pistol! And always brings hope, pathos, and humor to her work. We are soulmates!
Fortunate one 👍🍀