Summer

Laughter bouncing off living room walls,

Faces enter then exit stage left and right,

Students rushing from one scene to the next.

A house alive with the sound of young musings,

Filled with bliss and good tidings.

I remember the ground trembled before quaking.

Whispers of worry, town halls with hurry, cancellations unknown but surely,

And in the forward March of time, the show goes on.

Sudden shelter-in-place,

Endless hours to set my own pace.

Dust bunnies rolling from room to room,

Three stories of house reduced to silence.

No events, no faces, no reminder of what my place is.

April showers falling on empty rubble,

My only view for weeks? The window pain.

Then, life through a screen –

Days full of Zoom and remote tele-health,

Conjuring ghosts of human connection.

Light rays streaming through dusty blinds

Make stripes across my bloodshot eyes.

I imagine there May be silver lines coming.

Squinting, I emerge into the sun,

Blinded to what comes next.

I feel the pain in the streets,

the burns of historical heats.

Bitter but sweet, June bugs are singing.

Summer went fast, twice, my vision since blurry.

They say hindsight is 2020, so through

The fog I search for clarity

In 2020 two, already.

I recently heard the phrase "the days are long but the years are short." This has felt especially true ever since the pandemic started, so I wanted to write a poem reflecting on this altered sense of time over the last two years.