February 2020, The beginning.....
Original Art by Heather Thompson, Blue Phoenix Art - "Truth-Teller" ... Digital Painting Available for Purchase.
Amidst the Celtic pottery
I hunted for rare shamrocks,
crackled glaze with
moss yellow and blue-green hues.
Online marketplace
interrupted by masks
SELLING OUT
panic.
A world away...
what was there
was coming here.
It was already here,
It was already
everywhere...
quietly spreading.
Pings of the hurricane
a fractal memory from the 9th Ward
the aftermath of
HORROR.
As far as the eye could see
empty slab foundations
Where are the families,
the children?
2020
Impending doom
rose within the primal space
where a mother senses
predatory eyes in the
darkness.
COVID-19
"Are we prepared?"
I ask THE question.
They smirked
"We've got this."
A year of pandemic devastation.
"It's no worse than the flu."
Death, disease, illness, fear.
"Only old people get it."
Quarantine.
Stay At Home Order.
"How long is this going to last?"
They CRIED and RAGED.
"WHEN WILL WE RETURN TO NORMAL?"
Desperate attempts to return to normalcy.
Politicians parroted...
"We must return to normal."
Bodies pile up.
I wonder,
Will there ever be a "back to normal?"
Escaping seclusion
With reckless abandon
Crashing together
with respiratory droplets
intermingling between breaths
like candy coated cyanide
dispensed to hopeful fair-goers
who couldn't see
That there was no end
To the Tilt a Whirl
Once
the safety gate
Snapped...
SHUT.