It’ll all blow over, don’t worry, some said
But the hospitals were full, there was nary a bed
And the TV showed sidewalks with hearses, and the dead
Waiting to be buried.

Communities had barricaded themselves in
All deliveries were dropped off to be collected later
All stores shut down and their owners fled
To the countryside where it was said
The virus couldn’t survive.

With its hundred apartments, our own community,
Locked the two sets of gates, which we’d never seen done.
People worked from home, all felt dark and dun
Till, slowly, slowly, the children came down

Masked and washing their hands very often
They went into the yard, tried to have fun.
But out on the street, a little girl spied
A skeleton-like form– a dog that’d almost died.

Were his owners too sick, or had they fled
Forgetting him, abandoning him in their fear or dread
Of the virus?

All the children who saw his feebly wagging tail
As he leaned on the sidewalk’s rusty red rail
Determined that this little dog wouldn’t die
And they thought long and hard.

They begged their parents to order in dog-food
For the dog who’d barely outgrown his puppy hood.
And they promised to make up the money
By delivering all the goods that’d been left at the gate.

The residents were happy to pay a little more
To have their essentials delivered at the door.
The children used the cash to feed the poor strays
For there were four dogs nearby in the same case.

The dogs were adopted after the curbs eased
But my admiration for the kids’ empathy never ceased.