Joshua Keiter

It is a good year 
For looking back 
At all the pasts 
We have accumulated 
When we were closer 
Now that we are 
Further apart 
For the past like 
The future keeps 
Getting closer as 
Far away as it seems
It is only so near 
As it ever was to us 
In the beginning

Why is it that 
Turning a corner 
For the 270th time
This year 
Feels about as 
Momentous 
As any other day 

Even when it involves
A fake college 
Voting in a real leader 
Or a vaccine 
Developed with science 
Being delivered to those 
Who don’t believe in it 

I listened to the radio 
Playing a countdown 
Of two thousand twenty songs 
Most of which I’ve heard 
At least that many times 
While I unpacked boxes 
I wanted to dance

The quality of the light 
In certain films remembered 
From childhood 

Now viewed from 
An advanced perspective 
If not high definition 

Or theatrical productions 
Captured surreptitiously 
So that even the parent 

Carrying the crying infant 
Returns to their chairs 
By the following number 

Feels like corduroy and tea 
On an almost winter’s day 
And the smallest creatures 

Are learning and teaching us 
So much about how to live 
And how to treat your friends 

Lessons we need to relearn 
Every so often this time maybe
Before we return to these rooms 

Privileged to gather together again

If you know where to look 
Or listen 

The world is less lonely and full 
Of notes 

Left in trees for others to find 
And plant 

Ideas of loving kindness 
To share 

Sometimes with the whole world 
To make 

The space between us and others 
More tolerable 

And even if you do not know where 
To look 

The garden is still brimming
With magic

Waiting for what has 
Already arrived 
Is remembering a future 
That will never be 

That is the only 
Moment we have 
To look forward to 
Sees us sight unseen 

Recognizing ourselves 
Somewhere in the past 
That never was and 
Knowing for the first time 

Birth is constant 
And unrepeatable

It is okay to never 
Be okay ever again 

Though you may wish 
To return to normal 

Nothing is ever so 
Simple as turning 

A corner and finding 
Another corner waiting 

At the end of a long 
And harried road 

A train may stand in 
The way offering a ride 

To a destination that 
Consists of longer roads 

Each milestone basically 
Just a stone marking miles 

That we could have 
Stopped counting if there 

Had not been so many 
Stones along the way 

The grief remains the same 
Size but life grows around 

The wound and if you are 
Lucky life gets bigger

There are no cries or tears 
Or memories to be concealed 
They are burying numbers 
In potters field 

They count the statistics 
The dataviz our ignorance reveals 
They are burying our think pieces 
In potters field 

The disinformation grows 
The stones sprouting around the wheels 
They are shifting the dirt 
In potters field 

These are days fewer of us remember 
So many moments a lifeless protein steals 
They are raising the ground 
In potters field 

They say there is nothing to be done 
No way that power itself can wield 
Any lesson to be gleaned 
In potters field 

To think of the voices silenced 
The wounds a vaccine cannot be healed
They may keep some spaces vacant 
In potters field

Somewhere today I read 
A glimpse of what life 
Purported to be like 

Way back eight months 
Ago when it seemed 
A few weeks was so long 

We started interrogating 
Why we had closets or
Porches or tiles in the kitchen 

Turns out the past versions 
Of ourselves as humans 
Had the capacity to adapt 

To changing circumstances 
Around a public health emergency 
To the point where we take 

These changes for granted now

Days are like 
Gone pieces 
Of a puzzle 
Without shape 

You are meant 
To put together 
By setting them 
Side by side 

Without knowing 
How the jig was 
Sawed into motion 
Or when it is up 

Memory is like 
Seeing the whole 
In a reflection blurred 
By and without seams

My dreams these days 
Are currently vivid again 
As they were at the beginning 

When we thought we 
Would be isolated for 
A few weeks at most 

Now all these people 
Are back in my house 
Which is not really my house 

Except in my mind 
At the deepest levels 
Of unconsciousness 

Having no idea how 
They got there or where 
They might be going 

Except back in the synapses 
Where sleep is an excuse 
To see those we have missed 

All this forsaken time