Pandemic
Scarlet penstemons line the sunny side of the hills where we have stopped

Scarlet penstemons line the sunny side of the hills

where we have stopped, and in a snap

we slide a memory into our cameras.

Or phones, actually;

We never remember our cameras anymore.

 

Quarantine is an insidious device.

I am watching my granddaughter grow, crawl, stand

And take her first steps on the television

So instead, we drive.

 

Our family is pinned together with staples

Made of wi-fi and video

These are the signs of the times.

There is work to be done and only the risky can do it

 

The apocalypse is slow and stealthy

I grew up fearing The Bomb.

We were afraid of the wrong thing.

The real devil is not held on warships

It burns in lungs and hearts and muscles

And passes from friend to friend.

 

But there are still asters and sunflowers on the roadside

And Monkeyflower by the stream beds;

Columbine growing in the shade

And aspen that grow beneath an impossible summit.

There has always been and every summer

They rise again with hope.

 

There will come a day when there is nothing left of us.

The fools of humanity will decide our own fate

By stubbornness or folly or chance.

Either way, we have our numbered days

But canyons have been pushed

from grasslands to dizzying heights

 

The rocks have watched life come and go

They have buckled under pressure to grow taller

 

But they still stand

They still hold the columbine and lupine,

Ferns and aspens lend them their summer clothes

And when we are gone, they will tell new mountains

Once, there were people here.