Exiting the pandemic

As far as I am aware, I never had COVID

although it’s ever-present like a haunting

perhaps using some of the air in my lungs.

 

I live in a bubble now -- is that how aging works? --

all your life you focus on work, family, and friends

making connections, and then they slowly evolve

 

into something unrecognizable, something untether-able.

Weightless in a space module is now how my life is spent

puttering and bouncing from here to there. 

 

I lost 2 years while ensconced away from humanity

meanwhile the old connections withered, so

I am much at sea, at a loss, even adrift at times

 

I was in pronounced denial, but am only weary now --

not for want of trying – to sustain the memories of the past, 

yet not live there, but where?

 

Oh, Ye Donkey

(Reflections on a visit to the Donkey Sanctuary in Hopland, Ca  2023)

 

Oh, ye donkey

Oh, ye donkey ears

Oh, ye donkey hair

Oh, ye donkey eyes —

those eyes!

 

Grace to the manchild who leadeth us 

beside the still, dry creeks

and lay down in the pastures

beside the donkeys.

 

Witness to the lovely awakening  

to the gentleness of these 

servant beasts and to 

their power to change lives.

 

We were comforted and 

feared no evil. We reveled 

that day in donkey-ness.

In those soft donkey ears.

 

And, oh, those donkey eyes —

those eyes!