Actual Quarantine

Honestly the strangest part of all

Is how the quarantine feels like the past;

Like March two years ago, when what were small

Case rates seemed large, and we had not amassed

A range of options other than to sit

At home and hope the plague would pass us by.

Now we have more to do to ward off it

But once it hits, there's nothing left to try

Except the same old staying home. And now

We wait. There's nothing but the waiting.

And if there's something else, I don't know how

To find it. I just hate anticipating

The test that tells my future. So I wait

And as I wait, I feel my back teeth grate.

Enchantment

The day has dawned delightfully indeed

The sun is shining in the silver sky

The grass is growing green in seeming greed

To top the turf in splendor, or to try.

The morning mists like magic melt away

To leave the lingering lawn to look its best;

The frosts have fled to foreign lands. The fae

Have winged their way to wander in the west

Nearer to night than morning. Now we near

The start of summer, and the sunshine shows

Queer, quiet things that quaked our quilts with fear

Can comfort us, in kinder, daylight clothes.

And yet, you know, your warm days make me yearn

For frost, and frozen fairies in a fern.

Galactic

The stars are bright during the day.

They do not change depending on our sky.

And if they would, they are so far away

They could not even see our Earth to try.

The Sun, though closer, also does not alter

With our Earth's weak rotations as we turn;

Its massive fusion cannot, will not falter

So even in our night the Sun will burn.

The Moon, I must admit, will never shine;

Its beams can but reflect the Sun's bright light

But sunlight will reflect from it just fine

Even when, to us, it is not night.

The heavens do not wait on our affairs

No more should we on strangers' thoughts or stares.

Travel

I'm sure that life would have a different tone

If I lived here, or close to here, each day

No seeds of sudden Wonder would be sown

I'd curse the sky above for being Gray.

I'd be annoyed, and not excited, to

Slip by a sudden crowd upon the street

And when I had a thousand things to do

The slow bus speed would no longer be neat.

If I had needs that were not being met

I'd be as frustrated as I am now

At home; the bustle would not be, I bet,

Sufficient to not let me have a cow.

But since I am a visitor, I'll squeeze

The joy from what for living is dis-ease.

Dusk

The hours of the day have lingered on

Like Midwest guests unwilling to depart

Until the reason for their going's gone

And all the salutations must restart.

The sky has blazed and faded to a glow

Just barely visible against the dark;

The sun, like us, does not desire to go

And hides itself in the horizon's park.

The moon has risen, but would not be rude

And so will wait until the sun has flown;

Though it is early, it will not intrude--

But once it comes, its glory is its own.

The night that we await will be divine

But day has readied us for something fine.

Climate Change

The sky is orange out in Seattle;

In California it is red.

Louisiana's buildings rattle

With hurricane-force winds instead.

In Iowa the corn lies down

From the derecho that passed by

While Texan -outs, both black- and brown-,

Mean thousands freeze and hundreds die.

The Colorado River's gone

And with it water for the west;

The polar vortex seems to spawn

Much further south each year. The rest

Of US history will be

The coming rising of the sea.

Legalese

How terrible it is to make the rules

When no one cares about the legislation;

It makes the legislators feel like fools

And often bubbles into indignation.

The net result can be stultification

As rules unchanged will harden and grow brittle;

They sometimes need a massive perturbation

To help improve them even just a little.

And yet instead the legislators whittle

Shaving only small parts from the side

They argue over every jot and tittle

While letting larger problems sleep and slide.

If we and they cared more perhaps they might

Care more about if law is always right.

Plaisance

It's pleasant, I imagine, to be known,

To have your needs acknowledged, to be seen;

To sprout the seeds in others you have sown

With careful tending as they grow up green.

It must be nice to be surrounded by

A coterie of people you know well

Who hear the silence, and can read your eye

Without the need to speak or calmly tell

The troubles that have told on you; to know

That those around you care for who you are

As well as what you do. It has to grow

Increasingly delightful. And so far

In my experience, it has so proved:

When I am known, I am forever moved.

Predestined Evangelism

Grace, they say to me, is freely given;

A holy gift unearned and so unending;

It heals a world that we all know needs mending

And seals the cracks with which all life is riven.

It is the blessing of an unasked heaven

The joyful news that God himself is sending;

A free-grown grant, no merely mortal lending:

To human souls the necessary leaven.

Yet I am lectured to be born again;

Informed, unless I do just as I'm told

This blessed gift will not be mine to hold

As thus conditioned by the minds of men.

Therefore I have to ask: who gets to choose?

And have you really heard your own Good News?

On the Successive Deaths of David Bevington and Michael Murrin

There are some giants who remain in place

So long they are misregistered as mountains:

A cave reported where there is a face;

Their sleeping drool unrecognized makes fountains.

These massive beings cast their shadows deep;

So deep whole towns are built within their shade

Where people in the darkness softly creep

As if the sun itself would die and fade.

So great can be their impact on the land

That every map will note them and new roads

Skirt by their legs as if divine command

Instructed them to lessen their great loads.

And when they leave, the people who built there

Are left bereft, as lost as anywhere.