Pandemic Lockdown, Day 1

by Jene' Jackson

 

I woke late today thinking it had snowed

That singular silence

Muffled and pristine

As though no one has ever been

Before me

To hear the sounds

Of the earth

Air and wind

Crystalline.

But no, sunlight dappled my bedroom's shades

Calling me to rise to

A newly silent city.

To be in the light

Quiet.

How long has it been since the Earth woke like I did?

She, too, rose late today

And wondered

At the silence.

A hundred years

since she could hear the wind without the car

The grass without the mower

The rushing water in the brook river gutters without the rushing people’s frantic calls to hurry or they'd be late.

She rose to stand in her back door

As I did

To make sure it hadn't snowed, and

Like I did,

stood very still and heard

All things green pushing themselves to the Sun

Their yearning

Magnificent and grand and

Quiet as snow.

So much of her Self

she had tamped down trampled tamed

Yoked to her people.

Her kindly brutal nurturing

Nature bled of its power to heal and grow and bring forth life itself

In a bud or the sea or me.

a

Hundred

Years since

we woke

to

this silence.

Ah, there goes the first car down my street.

I can go to the store for food now.

Maybe I'll walk.