Life and Love in the Time of Corona

Everything is going well, until it isn’t.

Then it is the end of the world, until it isn’t.

Unbridled confidence and unfounded panic are the poles we traverse,

A jagged, looping path along which we cry beseechingly and grasp breathlessly.

Lovers reach for each other, unthinking

Parents clasp their children tight, unhesitating

The touching worth more than the thinking

Love worth more than the mere living.

The brave whimper and the strong flee.

Certainty blows away in a whisper of fear

And centuries of confidence fade in a dark reckoning.

Something wondrous in this breaking of rhythms,

Even miraculous this sense of fragility and gratitude.

Gone are comfort and control,

Gone the hope and faith of millions,

Gone that thin-skin of pretense called civilization.

All that is left are lovers, touching unthinking

And parents cradling the future, defiant and determined.

~Joseph Mussomeli