Six Feet Apart

When they tell the story of these times,
will they say that our universe was two thousand feet square,
that walking to the mailbox was an event to be anticipated,
that we measured our days from meal to meal--
or worse yet-- by the TV schedule.

Will they note that we worried about shortages
and doctors' visits, and family visits, and
not knowing if or when this all would end?
Might they document supermarkets' empty shelves,
and how we learned to Zoom?

Can fashion mavens explain
how masks and gloves and
disinfectant wipes became important accessories,
and suits and ties and Sunday clothes
surrendered to sweatpants and t-shirts?

Will they wonder how we felt
as we watched our savings
swallowed whole by failing markets--
or how we raged at TV news
and wept at strangers' lonely funerals?

How will they picture isolation?
Will they display an array of canvases,
lined in lonely rows,
each a separate world,
set six feet apart?

Pebble

It's the sharp reminder of a gravel path,
a forced pause to divest oneself
of a shoe--a sock--a boot..
whatever causes pain.
It's the grit round which an oyster
layers its nacre and builds its pearl,
the beginning of something beautiful;
it's the smooth hard 'good luck'
one carries in a pocket, just in case--
whose solid weight holds memory.
It is the center of the
widening round of ripples in the pond:
a point of contact that,
molecule by molecule,
impact upon impact,
spreads its effect
beyond its point of origin
to kiss an infinite shore.

A reminder, a pause, a foundation;
a charm, a source, an influence--
of one sort or another,
we are all pebbles.

4 Haiku--and the News

It’s a weird sort of haiku: 

1-Juxtaposed headlines-- 

metropolitan newsflash --

today’s broadcast news..

2-Stream-of-consciousness—

mind-boggling, strung-together: 

the news of the day. 

3-And my day begins: 

with bizarre bullet-pointed 

news in haiku form…

4-“Today’s insane news:

Corona virus briefing.

(Where, oh, where is truth?)

Tease out the threads of 

different versions;

click and search, then click again, 

following, following, 

till you, like Theseus, 

(beset by Furies)

wind your way 

story by story,

newsflash by newsflash,

out of (or into) 

the Minotaur’s cave.

Hope, Eternal

I wake facing east

with a window that frames the morning sky.

I wake to rooftops and birds and branches,

and, mostly, neutral skies:

gray dark succeeded by gray light,

cloud camouflaging brightness.

But sometimes, above the dreaming houses,

a wisp of rosy cloud, or a vivid jet-trail streak, 

appears across the lightening sky,

presaging a glorious sunrise—

and I scramble into whatever clothes

and race down to the river

In time to see the silhouetted trees

turn from black to bright,

the river turn from steel to silver,

the world turn from gray to glory.

The long, dark night is over, 

and on the horizon, there is

a hopeful pink cloud.

Message re: A World Gone Missing

If I covered a universe of milk cartons 
with pictures of the missing,
there would still be enough
to wallpaper the galaxy and beyond, 
and not much hope that anyone
could spot them and send them back
unharmed.


It’s hard to picture faces:
I miss cashiers' smiles at the grocery,
and surprise neighbor meetings in the aisles.
Casual hugs when passing on the street
are gone, now, along with handshakes.
Six-foot distance limits
the impromptu.


No Sunday brunches, or
holiday dinners, no
‘stop by and see us’ 
or ‘we were in the neighborhood’.
No cocktail parties, deadly or otherwise:
What’s in is
lonely.


Fundraisers are out—
except for the virtual.
And what’s a movie without friends
to share your popcorn,
or a play without discussion?
No need to dress up; 
the style today?
Pajamas.


Take the picture for the milk carton.
Take a picture of me, alone,
and all my friends, themselves alone.
Take pictures of the world alone,
pictures of the lost
waiting and hoping, 
suspended in time,
Hoping to be found.

Wishlist

Now, the field is swept clean:

distractions gone, excuses invalidated.

We are sequestered, and

all of a sudden, there is time,

a wealth of time, to spend

lavishly, foolishly, extravagantly:

time for the phone calls, time for the letters—

buckets of time to write that novel, 

build those bridges, connect to family…

There’s time to weed the garden,

even more to exercise, to improve;

time to read, to learn, to repair,

to clear those emails,

to empty that closet, to dispose of stuff,

to organize, to simplify, to think deep thoughts,

to file, to sleep…to sleep, perchance

to realize: 

it’s all a dream.  

Spring, Interrupted

The last frost date has passed,

which means I should have cheerfully filled

the pots on my front steps 

and the planters on my patio by now,

with brave new seedlings—

I should be rejoicing in today’s rain

envisaging thirsty little roots

slurping up nutrients with every drop.

But, my pots are empty.

As threat of frost evaporated,

nurseries closed, and so did I.

Winter solitude remains enforced 

for flora and fauna alike.

Within or without walls,

life cycles stand interrupted, 

static for the duration, and

we remain irretrievably

pot-bound.

King Tut--2020

We've been buried for a month or more,
and it's gotten old.
This tomb has lots of distractions
(I'm reminded of the pyramids):
but nothing like the world we knew.
No matter how many gadgets and gew-gaws,
the fact remains: we're stuck.

There's food, there are books, there is
the inevitable television,
(which the pharaohs were spared)
replete with news and politics
and assorted drivel
that would bore us to death, if we weren't
already dead and buried.

So here we sit, lined up nicely
in our nice, neat boxes--
veritable mummies, wrapped in
anti-virus masks, antiseptic wipes, and fear,
drumming our freshly-washed fingers,
impatiently awaiting
resurrection.

Rise Again

This is an old one, from the days when I did a Lenten booklet for OPMH...

Rise Again


From the mire of everyday life, we rise…
from the endless warfare of the workplace, 
the economy,  the traffic, the environment,
from the politics, the unrest, the crises, 
from the wounded cries ofthis importunate, fractured world.

From our knees, we rise
from our prayers and penance, 
from the reality of our sin 
and the certain knowledge of our guilt , 
our failures and our lack of merit. 

We rise into the hope of rebirth,
into the  knowledge of grace and love
and our acceptance of both,
into lives washed clean
by a sacrifice beyond our understanding.

Into the Easter dawn 
we rise again.

Alleluia.

Middles

The hardest part of any story is the middle: 
that in-between place inhabited by our second-guesses, 
the what-ifs and the maybes that spoil our sleep at night.
We arrive at a doubt-filled crossroads  
and we wonder if it’s been worth the effort. 
worth the precautions, worth the sacrifice.
(Ask the survivors. Ask their families.)
Forward or back? (There’s no turning back.)
There’s nothing left but the choosing—
We are in the middle now.


Weigh rewards against the consequences. 
Finish the job or chalk it up;
there is no standing still. 
No matter the inconvenience, no matter the disbelief,
no matter the boredom, or frustration,
no matter the masks, no matter the distancing,
no matter the prohibitions…  
make the good choice; 
finish the fight.
Life or death, 
Triumph or defeat.
The lady or the tiger.

Hard Times

When hope is at its lowest ebb,
when the blackest cloud
descends upon the barren landscape,
when the bad guys are at their winning-est,

I don't want to read or study or struggle through
the profound or disturbing or grimly prophetic.
I don't want to process the evening news,
or much of anything else, to be truthful.

Times are hard these days,
and it's easy to be impatient, to be frustrated,
to be angry, to be lonely, to argue,
to snap, to be the worst that I can be.

But...I put on my mask--
the happy-face one that says all is fine--
and I make my tea and read my paper
and carry on as if, as if...

I were breathing free, and life was good;
as if clouds of worry had given way to
clear blue sky and I could live again the life
I never knew I had... till now.

Two Thursdays

A couple thousand years ago,
there was a Thursday dinner,
private, isolated, in a hidden room,
and the conversation turned philosophical:
what was really going on, how should we behave
toward one another, what did it all mean,
and finally, what was still to come.
Death and dying, persecution, sacrifice and love.
Lesson, analysis, symbolism, prophecy.
Two thousand years ago.

What better story to hear this Thursday,

or any Thursday in this lunatic world,
when we are so in need of love,
when we are surrounded by sacrifice,
when no one knows what to believe,
or what it means, or what comes next.
In our frustration, our anger, our bewilderment,
we are engaged in a community,
a forced communion with our unwilling neighbors,
with death and dying and with no way
to predict what lies ahead.

There is a Friday for us all, tomorrow,
but it is a comfort to believe, a comfort to remember:
we live on the verge of resurrection.

Going Home

Tom Wolfe was wrong. 

The route may be different, and the vehicle may change, 

but home is where your roots lie, and the past is always there 

with durable connections, linking us together-- 

visible, accessible, tangible connections

that show from whence we came. 

We rummage through the lives we see

in our trunk of photos, 

finding home aplenty: 

structures, families, places, 

furnished with faces, drawing us back

to bold adventures and sad farewells, 

to birthdays and Christmases and summer nights  

abloom with promise--details on the map 

for the observant traveler. 

There is that smile, that tilt of head, the familiar profile-- 

threads that tie together generations 

and lead us forever home. 

Hiding Out

So here we are in the midst of this mess, 

waiting and wondering; it’s anyone’s guess 

if this will end, and, if so, just when 

things will get back to normal again. 

We clean and we wash, we bake and we cook, 

and, now and then, we pick up a book. 

but you can’t read forever, and TV is spurned 

as far worse a punishment than any have earned-- 

So we Zoom and we FaceTime about quarantine 

and all of the crazy, absurd things we’ve seen, 

(including our president, and all of his minions, 

of whom, if we’re honest, we ALL have opinions.) 

We talk, and we watch and we wait and we see 

progress, as slow as this month seems to be: 

improvement by inches, or by centimeters, 

by microns (or smaller), or by nanometers. 

We’ve marched on in darkness so long, I contend, 

this tunnel MUST have a light at its end;

and when it appears, what joy! what elation!

(We're starting to plan an escape celebration...)