Ode to 2020

Sad music

Always makes me feel happy

I don’t know what that means

New Years

Has never really meant much

To me

I don’t like to feel

Compelled

This year

Has been

Alarming

To say the least

But as Frost

Reminds us

In three words

“It goes on.”

We thought

We had lost one of our cats

But she just came home

Peering in through the glass

Two eyes and ragged whiskers

As eager for us

As we have been

For her

Who the hell knows

Where she has been

What she survived

Her fur isn’t

Laying quite right

She is purring and contented

She knows

She’s safe here

I guess

That’s what this year

Has relieved me of

The mirage

Of safety

With it’s smiling saccharine palms trees

It’s Mai Tais

Filled with sand

If I had a dollar

For every time

The bell has been rung

For every time

A placard or a person

Has admonished me

This year

Towards “safety”

I could buy you and me

And maybe the whole of the world

At least half a sandwich

Stay safe

Be safe

I know what they mean

When they say it

I know

It is mostly

Well meant

I suppose

It sounds nice

Like when people used to ask me

How my Mother was

While she was dying

A question

Not really seeking

An answer

We all knew

How she was

How the ending

Would read

“Be safe”

An admonishment

Not meant

For flesh

We were never meant

Wild carved from Wonder

As we are

To sink our teeth in

Too far

To swallow down the sedentary

The sterilized

The thornless

We were never meant for

The clamoring curtains

Of a charlatan Wizard

Though I hear

He was nice enough

Glory asked me yesterday

About tornadoes

Her endless eyes

Searching my face

For some solid ground

Some universal

Invincibility

Because

We got tornadoes

This year too

“They knock houses down Mommy?

Sometimes, even people?”

Yes

Sometimes

Even people

We ended

She was eventually satisfied

With the unavoidable truth

You can live where there are no tornadoes

But maybe

They have earthquakes

It’s the bargain

Of being born

Like my cat

Who just got home

Wanting

After a few minutes rest

In the warmth

To plunge right back out into

The icy darkness

So life

For all it’s brightness

For all it’s indefinable wonder

For all it’s ambiguous alarm

It is sometimes

The sorrow drenched opera

That always

Makes my heart sing

It is the sea

We cannot hold back

Even happiness

When it comes

When it soaks us in joy

Fills our glass

One too many times

Even then

We are just

Paying rent

To pretend

To have the reigns

Is to be a ship

Tossed in the ocean

Claiming to be Captain

A wine glass

Sure

It’s the warming revelry

We are vessels only

“Beggars All”

Carved in Wild Wonder

For risk and resistance and chance

For collision and spilled milk

I’m no rebel

Not really

Just a ship made of glass

Seeking the warm

Relishing the water

The saddest most heart wrenching opera

When I can get it