This poem was written during the heighth of the covid pandemic, after my husband bravely ventured out to hang with his buddies at a coffee shop & he came home & told me about the outing. 

 

Okay there are a few good things

that can come from calamity,

although sometimes

(or more likely all the time)

we have to dig really deep

into the dirt piled high,

under the mountains

of pain & sorrow

to find--

the gem.

So this crazy illness befell

literally the whole wide world

(perhaps every square inch

of human habitation--

don't know about secluded

jungle/tundra/desert communities--did they get it?)

 

Anyways lots & lots & lots (millions) of people died & PTSD stalked the nurses & doctors & morticians dealing with the bodies falling down & everyone nested in their homes as much as possible to hide from the air that we all share & breathe & the young ones and the old ones started bouncing off the walls or melting into the floor from all the eerily quiet isolation or the loud raucus boxed-in feeling--

 

okay now back to the buried jewel--

three old men sat outside 

a coffee shop

in open air

so they could breathe 

& hopefully live (longer).

Their hair had grown long

& one of them tied it back

in a hippie-style pony tail.

These gray-haired guys

told funny tales

& sang old Monkees songs

from the 60's

(hey hey we're the Monkees....,

they knew all the lyrics),

& they laughed

& the coffee tasted like

warm joy

& the air danced around them--

and for that moment,

the mountain glowed.