Leave something behind, he said.
Tracks, traces, or vapor trails,
better brief than not.
The idea of marking spring somehow.
Kilroy and all that.
The traffic hum and snow melting
in the yard. At long last
coming up for air.
Water running in the eaves,
the sun warm on his jacket
where he sat on the patio
trying to make sense of
what comes after pandemic.
-RD
March, 2020
Spring wanted to
come, honest,
like a slow-moving
antediluvian brain
over a white
receding tundra.
It was all about
timing, apparently
and the ebb and flow
of atoms globally.
Nation-state borders
dissolved as you
looked at them
McLuhanesquely on
whatever maps remaining.
Gazes quite froze to
screens and never-ending
press conferences,
dire counselling and
imploding economies.
1929–here we come.
I watched the sparrows
descend desperate
on my morning offering,
the squirrel asleep,
though the sky
felt soft blue so early
in this otherwise world
of gutted knowns
and defeated dreams.