Walk in the Park #2
social distancing uncertain as a blind
date
not six feet but four, or two with
friends and family
some look into my
face, smile sweet as a kiss
others hug
their feelings like misers, eyes an open
vault to guard from robbers, the alarm
never stops ringing
COVID’s lesson:
we need each other
quarantine makes
human contact tender to the touch
9 thoughts on "Walk in the Park #2"
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I LOVE that first line! Thanks for sharing.
I walk several times each week in a local park and this is like quality time, but with strangers. Every nod, wave, word, and look as I pass other walkers has heightened significance during this strange time.
Yesterday I felt it in the air
That nothing could stop me from hugging my friends,
But I didn’t.
But it did somehow seem sweeter seeing them through the distraction I had to struggle with. The words of “let’s just risk it and hug each other” I managed somehow to stifle.
It really is an issue. I met my cousins in an outdoor public space, folks I see maybe 3 -4 times in 10 years, and the decision to hug or not to hug was a real issue. We are going through strange times and six months ago we couldn’t have imagined this.
I love most “hug/ their feelings like misers.”
They do. I mark it as pre-COVID, the reversion to keeping the aura in its cubicle. We’ve developed an ability to screen everyone out of our life as we shuffle amongst each other, but after a period of quarantine I’m like a puppy that wants to lick every face (from six feet away, of course).
Two good walk poems, Mike, especially the second one. And the last two lines of it really resonate to me. When I am out and wearing a mask, as in the grocery, I want to tell everyone that I’m smiling at them!
You have expressed what most of us are feeling: our natural instinct to touch and be touched is being stifled. That longing really comes through in this poem! Great last line!
Love:
some look into my
face, smile sweet as a kiss
others hug
their feelings like misers
and the last line!