The Long Pause

I miss the quiet, empty spaces,

ears re-tuned to birdsong;

making bread and growing things;

sitting on front porches waving to passersby,

the neighbors we never met before;

idle walks and talks and noticing

the bend and sway of tree branches shedding pecans;

the hawk’s nest high above, with teetering babies poised to fly;

how fast hair and nails grow;

how small things really matter.

As death felled our numbers we ceded to finality:

a humble reckoning,

a full on look at dusk,

a reverence for breath.

Stripped to bone and memory,

we emerge to remember or forget

that THIS moment

THIS day

THIS  time

is it.