Corona Burana

The prompt for today was to write a ditty summarizing 2020.  I wrote lyrics that can be sung along to the melody for “O Fortuna” from the opera “Carmina Burana”.  What made me think of this was when I went grocery shopping at Shaw’s in Harwichport at the start of the pandemic.  Tuna fish was on sale but when I got to the section, every damn can of tuna was gone, even the store brand.  It made we want to drop to my knees, raise my hands to the sky and cry out “Oh For Tuna!”.  Trying to find a rhyme for tuna would have thrown off my whole pattern, unless I opted to write in Latin, but then nobody would have understood my ditty.  Oh, besides, I don’t know Latin either…..

So this is my ditty

And not too pretty

Some will dispute

Whether it’s a tribute 

Or an attempt to dwarf

A work by Carl Orff

I call it:

Corona Burana

Twenty Twenty

Not to envy

Plans we had to trash

Came a virus

Without any bias

Out of control in a flash

It is our task

To wear a mask

Something we should not dread

Our hands we wash

An effort to quash

The Covid of its spread

Stand six feet apart

It breaks our heart

To not hug the ones we love

Avoid a crowd

Don’t sing too loud

Aerosols we must think of

Comes the summer

What a bummer

 The Corona is still here

Shoppers limited in stores

Dining outdoors 

There is still much to fear

The good weather

Allows a get together 

Outside in the fresh air

Zooms and picnics

Are the best fix

For us to this pandemic bear

 The air turns cool

The news is cruel

The virus was not bucked

A vaccine brings the chance

In 2021 we will dance

Twenty Twenty you really, really sucked

(If one so desires, these words fit the melody for O Fortuna from Carmina Burana like a glove).

Ernie Stricsek

Chatham Writers Group

December 27, 2020