From ‘The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers (And their Muses)’
“Today you’re a boy catching frogs in the marsh.”

today the headlines ring out with viral messages –
numbers and graphs crassly detailing data with
little regard for the human lives or losses
they tally

in a flash the world is thrust into isolation –
people trapped in their own homes where hearts
in windows and songs from balconies resonate
around the world

perhaps it is a necessary evil –
a seal bobbed alongside me on my walk at the beach and
I opened my curtains to find deer lazily munching grass
on my front lawn

they say you can now see through the smog –
cities shrouded in polluted clouds catch the sun’s rays in every
direction, finding hope for renewal as flowers open their petals
onto this new world

you’re at the cusp of it all –
no longer just a boy catching frogs but releasing them back to
the marsh, freeing everything in captivity and opening
your doors to humanity

to welcome them in