or

Paen to the Pandemic

Cooped up in our private souls for years,
caught in this pandemic with our fears,
tired of self-examination, we
touch our open eyes so tenderly
insisting they should close and send us back
into the sweet blind Normal we now lack.

Keep them open!  We must learn to see,
care and understand what soon must be
a very different world of trial and strife,
averting the apocalypse of life
on this, our overpopulated Earth.
Our choice is now extinction or rebirth.

16 July 2022