In corona-hours, everything may be afraid of something and some things may wish it were not so. 
Spring’s wind swings the clumps of dog hair I hung up for the birds as possible nest linings. 
The chickadees scatter. A goldfinch bounces off the glass of my sunroom window. You’d never say 
the moon is afraid of the sun, maybe just dependent for shine. Today, at first light the moon 
stands up in a dawn-blue sky, defiant; for that hour present.  Another gust of wind swirls the 
tops of the silver pines and blows the downed hickory leaves across the yard like juncos searching 
for stray seed. My fear suggests I am at-one with all of it:  I am flung seed, fur clinging on a 
black wrought-iron fence, and the moon alive only for a few moments in its morning. 
 
Coloring
the paper print out
of the amabie
 
* Amabie (アマビエ) is a legendary Japanese mermaid or merman with 3 legs, who allegedly emerges 
from the sea and prophesies either an abundant harvest or an epidemic.

The man who shoved the bats
in cages for the marketplace?
The populations surge that crowded
out bat habitat?
Those who eat bat,
or pigs or birds? 
The Wrights’ airplanes?
A government that kept silent 
or the one that lied?
 
When we sing from balconies, 
watch chickadees at the feeder, 
send out notes to offer help,
offer the last mask
to the man next door, that fear
that nests in our chests
may release a song 
to the empty street. 
 
One earth
seethes, breathes winds 
from all directions. This we
praise. We are one.
 
What we have done to the earth
carelessly in competition, 
we see we can do to each other.
This we lament. 
 
What we may do to save the earth,
we can do for each other.  One.
This we must applaud
if we mean to have a future.
                        

You endure it as sands of allotment, 
gritty and abrasive. 
 
You know how much you must allow
like coins stolen from the cookie jar. 
 
Allege is for schemers. Allure
for anyone who looks better in a mask. 
 
Alumni at your age makes you realize
how many friends have died. 
 
The alarm sounded shrill,
alternately far away and then
 
aligned with your heart.