One Day

One day we’ll reminisce and reflect on,

months spent inside, as shut ins shutting down,

from New York to Nashville, San Jose to Dallas,

each crowded city to each tiny town.

All worried, stressing for our families,

for our neighbors and each valued friend,

for the doctors & nurses overrun by,

rotations of patients for months without end.

We kept busy with long neglected projects,

fended off growing panic each setting sun.

As numbers rose, so did prayers, by the millions.

We squirreled toilet paper away by the ton.

We watched the news as the daily numbers,

of the sick and dead steadily, unbelievably rose.

We asked questions, so desperate for answers,

then found the answer was; nobody knows.

Our hearts recalled, once again, that before,

we are each a Republican or Democrat,

that each is a treasured face at a family’s table,

a chair there where the person always sat.

One blessed day we will be past this,

at least those of us who will remain.

But all across this country,

all across the world…

each vacant chair will summon up pain.

We are all beloved and needed members,

a branch whose roots spring from a unique place.

Now we all sense and share the deep sorrow,

for every cherished and now missing, face.

2020……. One day this will have passed over,

juse as crazy and suddenly as it first came.

Shaking hands, hugging freely, though,

those things, I fear,

will never again be quite the same.

We withdrew, we pulled apart, to pull together,

to lessen the foul price all mankind would pay.

Future generations won’t believe what happened,

here in America, all around the world,

………one day.

_______________________________________

Kathleen Hussey