Before

Remember when

We’d get lost in a crowd

Bump shoulders with a stranger

Immersed in the swelling music

A sound bigger than all of us

Remember when

We’d smile at the elderly woman

In the grocery store

Browsing the same aisle

And she would smile back

And lean her wrinkled face towards

Our sticky toddler

To say hello

And remind us how fast childhood goes

Remember when

We’d shake hands

Look each other in the eye

Speak our minds

With kindness

Believe in the good of our neighbors

Our country

Believe

We are well

When we’d

Sit in coffee shops

Inhaling the scent of being awake

Eavesdropping on conversations

From the tables next to ours

Reading faces

Watching life happen

Outside the window

Remember when

We’d dream of traveling

The world

Of every gorgeous &

Dangerous possibility

Open before us

Remember

Before

They told us

To fear

And we forgot

To live