Our beloved walking place is closed. 
We mourn as though it held all of spring 
beyond its padlocked fence: Wild radish 
growing tall – almost the height of a man 
by now, like the golden mustard that glows 
in the oil fields. The coastal sunflowers too, 
sway along the newly-untrod paths, 
as the coreopsis with its lemon-yellow hearts. 
And just for a few more weeks, the disks 
of miner’s lettuce sprout in the shadows, 
safe this year from my salad. The hawks, 
the rabbits, the rats that feed the owls, 
all free from our invasion. Now coyotes 
can roam there in daylight, and the owlets’ 
parents can raise their young without 
our gawking eyes. That carpet of nasturtiums – 
they must be flowering now in bright reds
and yellows; they’re doing fine without us. 
This place is used to disease and death, 
yet every spring it bares its wild beauty 
and strides forth boldly as we must do, albeit 
carefully, into the heat and dust of summer.
                        

The freeways of our city are free at last,
the streets of my suburb now wide and carless. 
Walkers smile at each other, cross the street 
with a hollered Hello to show it’s nothing personal, 
shrug to say We’re in this together.

Two weeks ago I walked through airports, electric 
with fear and grateful for the well-stocked restrooms.
I observed the elderly, some in masks, 
and wondered Will he be alive three months from now? 
On each flight, I had entire rows to myself. 

For two weeks I’ve observed each headache, 
each allergy-scrape in my throat, and wondered: 
Is this how it begins? When I smile at a stranger
I ask the heavens: When this is over, which of us 
will still be here to tell the tale?
                        

in clear water, prism ribbons 
rippling on a flat white bottom

in the calm green waters of the bay
where the mind wanders in an endless lap

in a pool whose chlorine smell stings 
while snow dances down dark windows 

on a chilly day when rain pocks the surface
tattooing my arms as they reach wet air

over kelp columns rising through coastal swells, 
garibaldi feathering among the amber leaves

in water roiled by wind where I become
a fish sheltered in the pond’s calm sway

I want to pull water past me again, thread myself 
–weightless–through the water’s unseen eye.