And We Took a Breath

Breathe.

Sweeping through the streets, traveling overseas, comes a disease. Even more deadly than this, fear.

Amidst the waves of turbulence, of terror, of misinformation, and selfishness, something else arrives.

People take time with families previously ignored, plant flowers, learn new things. Forced outside of the rat race for the first time.

Across small apartments, separated from their neighbors, people are closer than ever before, playing music together from their little porches.

The Earth, our mother, sighs in relief as her children are forced out of some of their most destructive cycles.

The water clears, birdsong rises out of the silence, and a smog lifts for the first time in living memory for some.

All is not lost in this tragedy we see.

If only we can remember that the sickness which kills by taking the breath also allows us and many of our fellow travelers, our Mother,

To breathe.