Greetings to World Doctors, Nurses, and Front Line Workers During This COVID-19 Crisis

Artwork: Adrian D'Costa

Hope and Darkness

By Adrian D’Costa

COVID-19 is the epiphany of shadowy darkness,
It tests our will power and tries to stray us from our usual pace.
Are we afraid of the spread of this virus?
Of course, we are. But we don’t despair or make much fuss.

Some of us are quarantined and many of us are self-isolated,
We do not lose hope, although, for the cure, there is no vaccine or med.
Thanks to our doctors, nurses, and front line workers as they are toiling hard,
The very thought of losing this horrid battle is just unthinkable and absurd.

We, the Humanity, defy to bow down,
And we will find a way as always history has shown.
Our armoured bodies are at Normandy, Vimy Ridge, and Passchendaele,
As allied troops, we cannot let Human Element falter or fail.
Vulnerable, poor and sick are looking for hope everywhere,
As citizens of the world, with them, love and affection we do share.

Darkness was there before many a time,
It can’t make us blind or make us mime.
Till we find a cure we will fight against COVID-19,
Our next-gen will know, for survival, what does it really mean.

Surviving the COVID-19 for the Sake of Survival (A poem)

Image courtesy: cityofroseville.com/

Surviving the COVID-19 for the Sake of Survival

By Adrian D’Costa

Streets that had the hustle and bustle

everywhere and the hubbub was frequent

is now empty.

Empty without the liveliness.

COVID-19 Coronavirus. The name it is.

The death. The Grim Reaper.

Everywhere you go.

Waiting to strike at 12 o’clock at night.

Not even the Canadian Prime Minister’s true love for his

wife could protect her from contracting this highly contagious

illness. Love. A word with four little letters.

Are given away and taken in by people

all around the world.

Evilness is subsiding.

What we have is asking for forgiveness

and the mentality of being changed.

From Prime Minister to President to healthcare professionals

to doctors to nurses to government officials

to public figures to people like you and me

are worried about death. Worried for the people around us.
Worried for the world.

For friends and family members.

For the world and the nation.
How many innocent people have to die?

Today our leader Prime Minister

Justin Trudeau urged the Canadians

not to tackle this as a primitive elementary

issue constricted within the boundary

of our border but as a global issue

by following the rules of battleground

of the medical field and by being a true Canuck

united to one Tough and Rough Ice Hockey Team.

Because in the past we have seen over and over again,

what Canadians did to outlast, to outmaneuver, and to outwit

every pestilence, every war, and every burning matter

of our lives by being the citizens of this world

and being united near the brunt of the fire.

Yes. We saw the Canadian

lives being lost unexpectedly.

But we will win this.
We will get through this.

Believe me, my fellow countrymen.

With our Technology and our Intelligence

we will be at the top of our game.

We will contribute to the world

as part of the approach of Humanity

to save the world.

Time is nigh.

Time is short.

Time is not on our side.

But we cannot and must not allow to

smudge off the last imprint of Homo Sapiens

from the caves of this earth.

We have to stop this deadly pandemic.

We have to come as one to work

to uphold our Human Element.

And make the impossible possible.

We stopped the Ebola.

We seized the SARS.

We vanished the Black Plague.

We sent a rocket to the moon and back.

We can’t back down now.

We have to survive

for the sake of survival.

That must be our motto now.

A Christmas Poem: Christ Chose This Planet for Love's Transcendence

Merry Christmas!

Artwork by Andrea Mary D'Costa

Christ Chose This Planet for Love’s Transcendence

By Adrian D’Costa

Ave Maria and Salve Regina.
Our Lady conceived the Word.
I am Who am.
To the much feared, it means
to give them courage.
To the losers, it gives them
their strength back.
And to those who are afraid to
venerate, it gives them the humility.

I am alone by the window
on Christmas Eve
for a different kind of meaning.
I am pondering and contemplating
about a love that transcends all.
An unconditional love, bestowed
By God the Father
through God the Son
and God the Holy Spirit.

Can you fathom the depth and breadth

of that kind of love?
I wonder, and I wonder.
My thought strikes the Polaris star,
reminds me of the star that
guided the three Wise Men to Christ.

Yes. That must be the answer.
His innocent face is the answer

To all the hate of this world.
I demean myself on this day,
so that he gets elevated.
I put down the light of my life
so he can brighten up the sky without measure.

The firmament joyously dances
and makes a mark of the panoramic picture
of the Holy Family on this universe.
That’s the image you have to believe in.
That, two thousand years ago,
Christ chose this planet
to make His own.
He did not come as a King or Emperor
but was born in a manger as a humble person.
He showed us that only with humility
can we make this world
fill up with human love. 

Two Poems On The Remembrance Day Of Canada

A poppy field in remembrance of the Canadian war dead

Artwork (Toronto: November 2018) © Mary D'Costa

Canadians, at 11 a.m. on November 11 every year, observe a moment of silence in honour and remembrance of the dedicated soldiers who gave their lives and the living ones who continue to serve in the army during wars and conflicts. Those who died fighting for freedom and peace in the First World War (1914-1918), Second World War (1939-1945), Korean War (1950-1953), and Afghanistan War (2001-2014) are especially remembered.

To learn more, please read the following:

• Remembrance Day in Canada (Nov. 7, 2011)
• Remembrance Day in Canada 
• What's special about this Remembrance Day? Most Canadians don't know (Nov. 7, 2018)
• [Video] Remembrance Day Video -- 11 Canadian Contributions (July 14, 2018)
• [Video] Remembrance Day -- Canada Remembers on Nov. 11

On the occasion of the Remembrance Day in Canada, we present below Adrian D'Costa's two poems. 

Blood Soaked Poppies

By Adrian D’Costa

Armistice Day was it. So, they call it.

A break from the war.

Then again, the barrage of fire started.

Our boys and girls fought there at the Flanders Fields.

The blood that gushed out of their body

Filled the emptiness left behind by enemies.

Enemy soldiers were killing whoever was on their way.

Each day’s bloodshed grew new poppies in the field.

Poppy grew one after another. And another. And another.

Soon they make the field red.

Bloody was it. The field was red blood.

The roads were blood-soaked muddy.

But our boys stayed strong.

Our girls stayed steadfast.

They knew what they were there for.

They knew it from the beginning.

So, they sacrificed the ultimate sacrifice.

Now they are written in the stone walls of the world.

At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month 

we cease to exist and remember them out of respect.

History will repeat again

If we forget the past over and over

And the same mistake will emerge out of darkness.

Will eat our lives alive.

So, we bow our heads in silence for two minutes.

Lest we forget.

Peace In A No Man’s Land

By Adrian D’Costa

Peace. What is the true nature of Thou
in thy own poppy field?
Are you the melted poppy in the Flanders Fields
or are you the old forgotten poppy in
the Arlington Cemetery?

Then why do I bow my head
on the Remembrance Day?
If the poppy reminds us the
wet, muddy and bloody war history
then why do we bear weapons 

against our brethren and sisters?

After every soldier’s fall
the 21-gun salute
rings from one end of the earth
to another.
Then on the next second why
another one drenches his
suit with the red blood of his own?

Why the canon ball rises high up in the air
and doesn’t strike our moral conscience?
Peace, are you that fragile?
Are you a being or an innate object
played by monstrous monstrosity?

Why the decapitated mind of falsification
hides the truth from the fact?
Why Peace lies to humanity repeatedly
and tries to make amend for the errors made before?

I lie here and try to fathom
the diluted mind of anguish.
After a lot of soul searching
I define peace to be a part of the moral compass
that each and everyone possesses
to make this world a better place.

It’s not the fault of the peace though,
that the world is in entropy and in disarray.
The war in the field, the mines in the battleground --
They are not part of the peace.
They are what they are.
They are absolute wretchedness of social autocracy.
I can be superior to them.
That’s the pride.
And that’s the first reason in the causal effect.