@cattailnu I didn't write it for the prompt, but it reminded me of a poem I wrote the summer of 2020.

The Sorrow of the Valkyries

The heroes were no longer
On the battlefield

But in Emergency Rooms
And ambulances

They fought
To save lives

Not for land,
Politics,
Or patriotism

The battlefields halted
As sickness racked the lands
And the Valkyries

We wondered what
Our role was
In this new world

I pondered deep
This new and unfamiliar scene
Unsure what to do

They were heroes
And then they sickened
With the disease
They fought so heroically

But to take them
To their reward
Was hard
They were needed still
To save others

When heroes aren't bleeding to death
How does a Valkyrie decide
Who may live and who may not

We watched at first
As they became
More exhausted
Losing hope
But still struggling
To see one more patient
Keeping them alive
For one more minute

We watched the pain
As yet another patient died
As they called the families
of the dead and the dying

When they sickened
We had to choose
Who would go
To the Hall of Heroes
For not all may go

Choose the nurse
Who kept seeing patients
Even when he had been given
No protective gear?

Or choose the doctor
Still practicing at 80
Who had every reason
To let others handle this

Candidates
Came from
All countries
All ages

Young nurses
In their first year

Middle aged doctors
With teenage children

Pregnant women
Risking more than their own lives

Elders long past retirement age
Who could not lay down the torch

And as for the Valkyries
There was no rest for us

No location that was
Free of this disease
No place without heroes
No silent nighttime

As we toiled on
For the first time in
Centuries

We despaired

It is usually a joy
Collecting the heroes
And introducing them
To Valhalla
Giving them
Their first drink of mead

But these heroes
Weren’t happy to go
To a well-deserved rest

They begged
They pleaded
They wanted to
Return and fight

I took to crying
With every hero
I choose

In the dwindling spaces
Between pickups
I sorrowed
Devastated beyond words

Brynhildr was first to give up
She stayed behind
In the Hall of Heroes

She would not be the last
Of us to crack

Finally, it was down to me,
Grimhildr

I, too, wanted
To take my rest
After centuries,
Millennia
Of service

But there were still
Heroes to collect
And honor

And only me to do it

#Covid #CovidPoetry #Valkyries