Half a Million
On the announcement that the United States passed
five hundred thousand deaths for the Covid-19 pandemic
I won’t talk about it.
I won’t fucking talk about it.
I really don’t want to fucking talk about it.
So much needless suffering,
and so many unwarranted deaths.
My mind is full of breathing gear and hospital beds,
of full mortuaries and empty chairs and broken hearts,
of leaders who didn’t lead but lied,
of liberty that excluded compassion,
of money for guns but not for health,
of dropping bombs instead of giving masks,
of scattering when there should have been gathering,
of deadly division in place of unity,
of bodies stacked in the street without care,
of the exhaustion of energy and the burning out of love.
Turn the page now,
the darkness is receding,
turn the corner
and find a place of light.
It’s coming, this redemption
from the mindless, endless death.
The leadership has come, and it does not lie,
the gathering, the unity,
the forgoing of condemnation
in favour of that higher goal.
The night was dark
and full of terrors,
but the dawn is coming,
scarred and broken,
but glorious all the same.
