All the huge strong limbs toppled down
Long beautiful maples, old and young, on the ground
We all had seen such storms before
And, being spared, we thank the Lord of Trees
Or whatever power has opened the door for us to see
How light our touch is on the earth
How easily we are swept away
How like this arboreal battlefield all around
The virus within has knocked our cells to the ground
Inside and out we have spotty power
Mainly to mask and to rake from hour to hour
To help the neighbor, to scrape away at despair
To devise new ways to scrub the air
To watch them accumulate, the dead cells, and leaves in a heap
It’s so odd how I build the piles, so round and so neat
As if such editing will do some good
To disabled immune cells and to fallen wood
At heart don’t we know how little there is for us to do
But to pray and await the clean-up crew
It’s harder still to acknowledge the awful truth:
We are being shaken apart from branch to root
Tell Me What I Dreamed
Tell me what I dreamed, the child said
And I laughed, of course, and played along
Had he been this night in a giant collapsing house
The shape of a leaf or of a green bulb?
Was he teetering on a train on the roof, as he once said
As he lay half slumbering half waking in his bed
And that was the occasion I explained or hedged
No matter how scary the speed or the drop we always pull out
We never crash or splat or die
We always rescue ourselves as we open our eyes
Which is one of the finest aspects of human sleep
And it made me think and almost hope
That this Covid nightmare, this very thin rope
From which we dangle, that all the measures are failing
The masks all have holes
Even the scientists wear mourning clothes
Yes, the infection we’re all part of is also a dream
Then waking up will be our rescue, our true vaccine.
Ode To Remote Learning
Experts tell us we learn from each other and we learn apart
As no one knows each in what measure, we may as well start
In good time we’ll find our way, we’ll ascertain
If we’ve suffocated your wonder, or muddled your brain
If maybe while reading your book
You’ve become lonely, and you long for the look
Of that teacher kneeling beside your desk
Asking, Have you done your best?
Which you know you haven’t because you’re at home
And there’s always a corner to explore, there’s always the phone
We’ll put it out there, the puzzles, the games, and the charts
And you’ll take what you will alone or apart
When I was a kid I had an art set, if I remember
That told me I could paint to perfection
The Mona Lisa if I just followed directions
So why not learn to be a friend or to share by the numbers
Who knows what benefits will come our way in the end
Creating a nation of self-learners, so strong yet remote
Everyone of them will grow up longing to participate, to vote
And beyond all our worries and our yearning
We’ll have saved the nation through remote learning
I admit to pie in the sky
Yet the first order of business has been not to die