The Incalculable Loss - A Poem

Day 78 of shelter-in-place
We who are hurting
And are so small
Curved and hunched
In protection 
100,000 and more - your breath catches
A sharp intake as the weight of 
These numbers settle into your spine

10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 
The scale of it all ~

Let it be known that in the time of this disease
The first inclination of so many
Was not the firehose
Or the ax
Nor the bullet and the too short temper

It was instead to offer 
Our own unique abundance to each other

To reach for soil 
To sew a garden full of seed

It was in the smallest of things
We found our own holiness

The way the sky darkens before night
A scent of a flower
The careless winged cacophony in the trees
In this we find our humility
In this perhaps
we find our grace 

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