Dedicated to my June Cleaver 3/28/2020
Something was taken from us all
in such sly--devilish ways
like foreboding chalk markings on mailboxes
without the slightest notice of day-nor-hour.
Random selection of whether it will be you or me
fragility exposed like brick walls in brownstones
like bare asses lying on sandy beaches without coverup.
Life’s joys and gifts expected to always be there;
missing precious irreplaceable moments out of hubris.
Thinking things would always be as they’ve always
been.
A busying of our souls blocking
ancestral treasure.
Time, embrace, togetherness,
intentionality fading in the rearview
unsure of the comeback hour—A reckoning
fade to black.
Now, life compact; tightly woven in four walls
pintucked with those who’ve been near since the beginning of this dreadful
moment in time.
Should be enough
but
feels
sparse
Should be grateful for the time and togetherness but didn’t want it like this.
The cost for some
too expensive a price to pay.
A whiff of ungratefulness hanging in the air
like a recognizable and shameful funk.
It’s vapors like markings on the walls of our
souls.
Things changed in unplanned ways
desperate to rewind back even an hour
before it all began.
Loss, immeasurable
loss, out-of-order
communal grief—once an inalienable right
now down to ten;
grief on a damn layaway plan
moans and hymns reticent
reminded that singing alone ain’t sangin’
I’ve never—we’ve never
grief laid away until we can come back for her
sacrilegious
decuple pain
Lists with familiar names-familiar faces,
flags that wave in remembrance.
Unsanctified prayers for exclusion, real.
Those who suffer draped in a cloak of aloneness,
a finery no one should don.
Fearful that this time sounds like a
death rattle lodged in our very souls.
Like hearing laughter in an empty room
a body shaking—soul disturbing experience.
Left with a pregnant craving for simple things and mercy
left in the war room asking for my kinfolk and friend-folk to be spared
left with nothing more than what’s left after.
Enough to evoke gratefulness still, wisdom.
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