Remember these days
these brief days
when we walked in groups of one
we gave thanks to the ones who toiled
and our lives touched each other even though our hands didn’t.
Remember these days
these brief days
when daddy was no longer at work (yay!)
because people mattered more
than production:
we discovered we had lungs (so fragile)
and the air became breathable.
Remember these days
these brief days
with the deafening chants of birds, their speeches, their courtships, their pleas
finally audible,
and how we watched them build nests from our dining room window,
the whole family gathered around the table for once,
the playgrounds locked, quiet,
the streets devoid of the screams of neglected children;
the strange intimacy.
Remember these days,
these brief days
when we looked at each other with fear and awe
and doubt and hope and kindness
– but we looked! –
and were on the verge of rediscovering
humanity;
A book and a stroll meant the world to us,
we sang on balconies
while deer with unnatural eyes and glistening antlers
wandered into Nara and took the empty metro nowhere.
Remember these days
these brief days
when the trees stood erect and reached into the sky while the stock markets fell
(not the other way around)
when the river exhaled a soft haze at dawn before the buzz began,
the buzz of a thousand and one insects.
Remember the days
when the engines of destruction stood still for a minute
while food continued to grow out of the dark soil
and we were afloat in the poetry of necessity.
Remember these days
for they will not last forever
and maybe, one day, who knows,
they shall be missed.
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