Before

Remember when
We’d get lost in a crowd
Bump shoulders with a stranger
Emmersed in the swelling music
A sound bigger than all of us

Remember when
We’d smile at the elderly woman
In the grocery store
Browsing the same aisle
And she would smile back
And lean her wrinkled face towards
Our sticky toddler
To say hello
And remind us how fast childhood goes

Remember when
We’d shake hands
Look each other in the eye
Speak our minds
With kindness
Believe in the good of our neighbors
Our country

Believe
We are well

When we’d
Sit in coffee shops
Inhaling the scent of being awake
Eavesdropping on conversations
From the tables next to ours
Reading faces
Watching life happen
Outside the window

Remember when
We’d dream of traveling
The world
Of every gorgeous &
Dangerous possibility
Open before us

Remember
Before
They told us
To fear

And we forgot
To live

Tags: 2020, covid, Poetry