Worry Confusion Anxiety & Fireflies

Worry Confusion Anxiety

Where is the virus hiding?

On my grocery bags? My carrots? My cereal box?

Will its tiny hooks take hold in my hair?

Under my fingernails? Will I breathe it in?

Life as we know it feels strange, scary—over?

How to help my frail neighbor? How to clean my mail?

How to live in a world at war with an invisible invader?

Can we do enough to stay healthy? Happy? 

How long will we crouch in our foxholes?

Quarantined for weeks? Months? Years?

We drown in disinfectants, sanitizers, bleach, soap.

Is it ever clean enough?

Where is the PPE?

Why no masks, protective gowns, face shields?

We expect ten million will be delivered tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes and goes. Without them we weep.

Is it Armageddon, the apocalypse, or will we survive?

Will life return to normal—ever?

Will kids go back to school? Baseball? Dance? Music?

Will we go out to dinner? To movies? To concerts?

To our family and friends?

Will things ever be the same? Or will the scourge return—later?

How many lungs will fail? How many victims in comas?

How many will not get a ventilator because there were none?

How many will die?

We pray, meditate, wish, hope, and dream that it will be okay.

Fireflies

The tiny beetle bursts its blaze.

Such a lovely mating dance,

Winking, blinking in the night.

“Catch me if you can!”

But we are children, amused, amazed,

Oblivious to the purpose of these bitty fireworks.

We crouch and wait in high grass

And leap up with both hands, cupped

To capture the winged creatures.

We feel them scurry, tickling our palms,

As they try to escape from our hand-made prisons.

But we are faster than the bugs

And pop them in our jar, our magic lantern

Lighting our curiosity and wonder.

In college we learn it is not magic.

It is a chemical reaction occurring

When luciferase reacts with luciferin

In the presence of certain ions, ATP, and oxygen

To produce light.

Does science spoil the wonder, the curiosity?

No, we still love our magic lanterns.

Now we see our lamps are sexy

And even more intriguing when we know

The blinking pattern allows the singles

To find each other, each with its’ perfect mate.

We wonder: Where is our luciferase?

Where is our luciferin?

Is it on Match.com? In a bar? In a newspaper ad?

Will we meet while we walk our dog? Or sit in class?

Why did we miss out on luciferase and luciferin?

And can only watch the magic in our summer nighttime lanterns.