Fiat

Half mast again: the flags, the hearts
The world droops
As if we had all slid together into the Persistence of Memory
Time melts, strength ebbs, hope sags

We have the same arguments
We shout into the same echo chambers
No minds are changed
No hearts are stirred
(But likes are clicked)

What is truth? said Pilate as he washed his hands
At least he asked the question
Here we think we know already
No questions asked, no answers sought

It's the gravest public health threat in living memory /
It's overblown and it's crushing our children
Masks save lives /
Masks don't work

I read in the quiet mornings about the Iron Age warring tribes
I'm glad we know better
I think we know better
But what are we, I wonder, if not a land of warring tribes,
hurling bitter words in lieu of biting spears?
We talk past each other,
like undisciplined archers, casting away their arrows

Thoughts and prayers,
we say as nothing changes;
Thoughts and prayers.

The thirteenth month bleeds into the cruelest month
Shots in arms, bare faces in bars
Levees and breaches; the water rises

In the fall as the days grew shorter and the cases surged
With my son and my spade I planted
Tulips and daffodils, purple and gold
Hope, I said, Let's choose hope.

The daffodils are blooming now
The tulips' rumpled leaves await the stalks, the buds
They emerge as if by magic,
summoned by the sun
undaunted by their burial
or by the winter
-- such a winter we had

I too have felt buried
weighed down and frozen
Maybe you have too
Today is the YES day, the FIAT day
My YES is rusty and my FIAT is uncertain

I think of the bulbs beneath the earth
They could not know where they were going;
They inched skyward nonetheless.
(I like to think I'm smarter than a daffodil bulb
but) I also do not know where I am going

I think about the blooms on this Annunciation day:
a golden balm to the winter-weary.
I turn my face to the Summoner and say 
YES, FIAT.

It was a long time after that first FIAT
that the fruit of it fell, ripe with redemption.
It's a quick-fix world:
Intermittent Fasting Brings Peace of Mind!
or so they tell us
Our Meditation App Will Shape Your Six-Pack!
or something like that
But one thing I know, 
fifty years in:
real change takes time.

YES, we say, and the leaves rise slowly
FIAT we say, and the stalk stands tall
ACCORDING TO THY WORD, we say,
and the bud bursts forth.