A Form of Social Distance

COVID is an existential threat

To other people. Now I do not mean

I couldn't die. But it will not upset

My way of life as well as my routine

Unless I do, or someone near to me.

I have a house that I can pay for; food

Stored up; some savings; job security.

So all the terror somehow is imbued

With surreal colors, like a late Monet.

I do not go outside. I eat. I sleep.

Existence wanders on from day to day

Despite the quarantine. I rarely weep.

This quarantine may threaten many lives

But warm and sheltered, privilege still thrives.

Social Distancing

Back when the West was won, we huddled close

In sod huts bent against the endless breeze.

Our families were enough; they could engross

All our attention, and they could appease

Our every need. The older taught the young,

The parents handed down what they had learned,

And everything was good enough among

The growing family as the seasons turned.

In those days farms were few and far between.

A neighbor was a good ways down the road--

So, often spoke of, and yet seldom seen--

And strangers never troubled each abode.

But if we won the West, wasn't the point

To not live thus? The time is out of joint.

Caution

Imagine this without the Internet,

Sans telephones, sans everything we use

To stay connected, stave off boredom, set

A limit to the impact of the news

(As well as hear the news itself, of course).

Imagine doing this alone. And then

Remember medicine. Conceive the force

With which plagues hit, and glorify again

The depth of what we've faced. Do not pretend

The world was isolated in the past:

Ships sailed, roads ran from end to end

Of continents. They died. But we can last

If we embrace what we have learned and made

(Though even so we ought to be afraid).

Quarantine

Overreaction now would be ideal;

We would like nothing more than to be told,

Some days or months from now, that many feel

We didn't need to do this. If the old,

The ill, and the infirm are to survive

We need to be aggressive. We may look

Like fools, but know: if they are still alive

It's worth it, even if you think we took

Precautions that weren't needed. We can't know

Until the end what ought to have been done;

All that we can do is try to slow

Progression. And you can't please everyone.

The chance of saving lives must matter more

Than anything, and that's what this is for.

Consideration

The patience you have shown with me

Exceeds the bounds of expectation.

To do so so consistently

Would draw me to infatuation

Were we not, by good luck or sense,

Already bound by deeper ties;

I love you not as consequence

But as a bedrock truth that lies

Down at the core of my foundation.

And so your patience is, I find,

A blessing past remuneration.

In this, as all things, I'm resigned

To be a debtor since, you know,

You own all I could ever owe.

February

The longest month I'll ever see

(Though shorter than its neighbors are)

Has finally time enough to be:

To stretch itself into the far

Corners of an extra day;

To shake the snow from off its feet

And dance the doldrums all away

While ice and cold go in retreat.

Strange that the longest should be so

Atypical, and yet it seems

Appropriate for it to go

Buckwild. February dreams

Like others do, and so it tries

Other weathers on for size.

Inflection

People will say it's overblown;

That really nothing new or worse went on.

They'll say it's something we've already known

For years. Nothing has changed. Nothing is gone.

They'll tell you to stop acting like today

Began a chapter, or else saw one end;

That they could see it coming far away

So it's just confirmation of a trend.

They'll swear it's nothing new under the sun

Or if it is, you shouldn't really care;

That everything today could have been done

The day, the year, before. And that's all fair.

But when they do say it's been true before

Tell them that we won't take it anymore.

Little Room

I felt inspired; then I went to write. 

And suddenly the thought of composition

Is terrifying. Should I keep it light,

Or would that lightness trigger your derision

As if the topic that I wrote about

Deserved no better? Should I try instead

To prove significance beyond a doubt

By writing heavier than would be read?

Are darker poems better? Lighter? None?

Would even this be read by anyone?

At last I sat and told myself: ignore

These meta questions. Write your thoughts. Go on.

And so I write. I love you more and more

Even though this sonnet space is gone.

Social Contract Theory

Politics should be the art of deals

But for that to work, there has to be

Agreement on the base humanity

Of everyone involved. If one side feels

Only they have rights, that likely seals

The fate of all negotiations. We

Can compromise to build society

But not when compromising subtly steals

A part of us away. To deal we must

Acknowledge that all parties play a part:

A compromise is made of cut-and-thrust

But no one's thrust should cut another's heart.

All politics must be, then, built on trust

Without which we can never even start.

Karenina

It's easier to write about a love that seems

Impossible or difficult or somehow barred;

That occupies the distant orbit of one's dreams;

Whose realization is unlikely, or just hard.

A troubled love's complaint, although of course not new,

Is for that very reason often easier

To share with others who, perhaps, have suffered too.

Its treatment may be lighter, open, breezier,

Or wrought beyond belief into a twist of woe

But either way, the audience is primed to feel

Beside you, filtered through what they already know:

Which means that they'll believe that thwarted love is real.

But speak of love achieved, and Tolstoy's words reverse:

A happy love's unique, and so the poem's worse.