I want to comfort you,
With words that I fight back,
Because they would be lies,
In honesty,
I don’t know,
I don’t know how this will all work out,
If plans will be dashed,
If,
When sickness will hit us,
If death will miss us,
There is so much,
I do not know,
So much you should not have
To be weary of,
To be aware of,
All I know to do,
Is hold you as close
As I possibly can,
And pray away the virus,
Which your way,
I beg it doesn’t go.
Knowing Evil
I’m attempting to know evil,
To understand and speak on its ways,
But like a well-meaning incantation I wonder,
If this may go all wrong,
Should I face evil
Will I wither in its presence,
Or stand steadfast with resolve?
Will I even know how to identify it?
Will it act coy and deceive with best intentions?
Will it proclaim it’s evil ways,
As comic characters do,
With long drawn out monologues?
I suspect evil is not so easy to be cornered,
That it hides just out of the corner of one’s eye,
Until it has usurped one’s vision,
It is ordinary
Until it is not,
Until it is something initially unimaginable,
Yet creation of this very world,
It is camouflaged,
And of various types,
Of natural and moral operation,
It is human in creation and, or at least in perception,
Evil is the lived unholy,
The antithesis of the ambrosia that is good,
It is terrifying in its presence,
And yet it has a worthy rival opponent in that very good,
That just like evil can be conjured by the force of will,
Of need and drive for a restoration of a healthy equilibrium,
The need and drive to see good prevail,
For evil is an ulcerative sore that can only venture to consume, consume, and consume itself, without a counter balance,
It is disheartening in its presence,
It is weakening in belief,
And yet with faith
There is a force possible to face it,
Faith in the possibility,
In the power,
In the continuance of good,
That which restores hope,
Which reignites will and belief
In the ability for good to face its opposition,
Evil seeks to weaken
With relentless pressure of that which is bad
Upon our lives,
It is oppressive,
A weight of negativity,
And yet,
It is in darkest night that the stars of hope shine brightest.
Evil is a reality,
And yet,
And yet,
We cannot let evil cloud the hope
that shall always remain in the possibility of good.
Steadily
Beloved,
Wherever you are,
Wherever you go,
May you be guarded,
From miniscule forces
Of great resolve,
May your lungs expand and contract,
Steadily,
May the spirit of life,
Watch over you,
Of this I pray.
Vital Importance
Little one,
I know it’s scary,
This world you’ve been thrust upon,
The words you must hear,
Rushed and forced through uncertain adult mouths,
Pay no mind to the quivering in my voice,
As I instruct you time and again,
Again
And again,
On the vital importance
Of washing your hands.
The New Real
My body is a liability,
I am diminished in my capacity,
As a viral assault occurs outside my door,
I am isolated by my own vessel’s vulnerability,
A contagion of which I fear to be host,
Inside my domain I am safe
Safer,
With potential hazards in every touch,
On every surface,
This is psychosis inducing phobia
to remain in such a context,
And yet here we all are,
In our mutual panic rooms,
Or out in denial of the risk,
We are unwilling hosts in waiting,
all,
Distant,
shut in,
This is the new
Real.
Unleashed
Time it now seems to tick differently,
Though the hands nor numbers have changed,
It seems faster,
More pressing,
Each tock,
For the situation is more dire now,
As if we weren’t always evading the inevitable end,
As if death is only now an option,
We are afraid of this reminder,
For now it is constant,
Encroaching like this very plague,
On all aspects of our lives,
Waking in disbelief that this is reality,
Then try to move through the day that continues to age despite you,
And everything seems a pointless distraction from the fact that this is not normal,
This hovering of fear,
Fear of contagion,
Fear of loss,
Fear of the unknowns,
Of a world held hostage by this virus.
Isolate,
Don’t congregate,
Keep the spread under–
Control has never been had,
And that is our greatest fear,
That no grip will gain hold of this
Unleashed Pandemic,