July
(pandemic time)
Just is going by so quickly
Soon will be the ides
And yet how can that be?
We’re inside in pandemic time
The days are blurred
The hours should be slow
As if marked
By a Gothic clock
That ticks without relenting
In a ruined house
But here it is, half the month
Is nearly done
Maybe the problem is
Each day is rushing by,
Losing pieces
As an airplane hull in a comic book
Crashing craft before the superhero
Comes,
Lifting up the plane
Restoring those of us inside
To safe living on the ground
What we’re used to
Isn’t happening
All the things we’re told need doing
In each hour
So the hour slides
Collecting in a bin, somewhere
Maybe we think the hours
Will be called back into service,
Though really I think we know they’re gone
And with them,
All our former expectations
We want time to wait
So we might catch up what has gone
Bring it back into our time
That it might rush again
But we’ve heard the occasional
Voices
Like soft-spoken prophets
Telling us that normal will have to be
Redefined,
And then
It’s all right
We will have it
Back and for the first time
Hello, I must be going (Captain Spaulding)
Time will be back
To fill more as we wish
Though there is a call
In the air
Or on the tables with our alarm clocks
Inviting us to be more woke,
As we’re saying,
For the day
A day of work
A day of home
A day of work at home
School out there
Jobs out there
Keeping them inside, too
Inside us
The Earth is a busy place,
Though not so much in nanoseconds
As in seasons
Seasons of life
And letting go of life
When we return,
We’ll have the chance to keep some things
Old things and new
Making a fuller way to live
A fuller way to understand
Ourselves, our families, our friends
The world we’ve been given
And still have, for now
Intertwining life
With more threads for the loom
More strands in the weaving
Valuing some things
We always said
We’d get around to
Such as lifelong learning
Family really matters
Well, it’s turning into a banner over town
Relax, enjoy the day
Fill it with what you will
Or let it go
But here is a chance
For an awful reason
To repack our lives,
Leaving what’s no longer needed
Along an existential road
Backing into what we’ll call
Another time
That now is past
We’ll walk straighter in the now
(straighter however we go)
With vision, other senses for today
And some toward the future
Tomorrow hopefully will grow
And then a little more
But have today
A first day in July,
All the hours in a day and season
Count them slowly, count them fast
Count them not at all
Let time be a blanket
Rest or play or work upon it
Savor
Breathe fully
A gift of air from the sky
And the host above, below
The maker it works for
Who will, as we will,
Keep the time for us in
What happens
And what happens next
C L Couch
Photo by Ian Macharia on Unsplash
Took this on a trip to Kargi, a remote nomadic settlement in Kenya. It’s been a while since I got to experience a people so constantly happy and full of joy as the people of here.
clcouch123 
July 11, 2020 at 5:48 pm
I love this poem. Very well written and captivating till the very end. 🤗
July 11, 2020 at 5:53 pm
Thank you so much! I got concerned about the length, so the specific nature of your comment is a relief!
July 14, 2020 at 4:06 pm
We are certainly living in a different time. Perhaps it’s good that we are shaken out of our complacency and not take things for granted. The cynic in me believes that nothing will change. We will forget and move on as before with some minor technological changes, home delivery, distance learning.
July 14, 2020 at 6:01 pm
There is, of course, sense in what you say. I imagine some folk are learning that some of the things they’ve been going through they’d like to keep: home delivery, as you say; working from home; even taking walks through the neighborhood (where there rarely is a crowd). It would be good if we also learned about and tried to practice disease awareness and prevention–and learned to appreciate the global human community we’re all a part of. But others, maybe most, will try to rush back to what was considered normal life.