Quarantine

Forty days it seems to mean.

Quarantine.

Mind goes back to days pre-flood

Wheeling rations into our ark

Was the chaos less then?

Still we are waiting for the waters to go down

For our rainbow to grace the sky 

For birds to tell us that a way out is in sight

Green! Freedom… in the shape of an olive branch

A clean earth to step upon

A command again to go out

And multiply

We fear numbers

Who is left to number the dead?

Forty days.

Enough time to fast in a wilderness - Jesus style

Until it’s the devil himself who takes to tempting you

With something more than just fun

And still we wait for the scarcity of our thinking to wane

Will the mom-and- pop shop pop up again

The diner next door has run out of power for its neon signs, it seems

It was forced to shut down too long

Forty days it would have managed.

30.3.2022

Lydiangeline