Hope

This year might remain

a thorn in our flesh

in our memories a nightmare

that shook us up

in the middle of the night.

A circled year on the calendar

that put plans on hold

weddings, holidays, dates

every crumb of life that 

kept our plates full

we'll  treat with contempt

this year like a rodent that we are trying to

remove from our homes

a comma we are trying to erase

from the sentence of our lives  

that has split the meaning.

Yet in the midst of a lost poem

called life, I try to wake up to the angry alarm clock, eat the breakfast

without making complaints, 

as I struggle to find the lost rhythms  

hope is the name I think of

that inspires me to sing along

with a choir that is keeping

the music alive in a mass

that can only be seen, not tasted.  

Silence

This pandemic tells us a story
of how we may need to wait
before we join the dots
of our life. The image is blurred.

Sleep is a ritual just like
the Sunday mass. I love to do it
but why I want to. I can't say.
Nothing can make it happen.
Not even the perishing blue light
of the television shutting itself down.
I think I'm evading fear by staying awake.

Thanking for the food is gratitude best done when hunger games are being played
destruction looms large so does uncertainty
learning to live in a room blinking with lights and smelling of disinfectants is a lesson
live the day until the mind can close its door.

Nights aren't tired they draw pictures on a blank slate, shapes that define existence
as I search for the brightest star in the sky, I smile at the thought of the person who taught me to memorise my name
I call him faith. He calls me silence.