“. . . freedom and happiness are found in the flexibility and ease

with which we move through change” ―Gautama Buddha

The streets and playgrounds, courts and fields are emptied.

The string of rowhouse swings emptied of coffee klatches

across porch rails. Silence on cobbles glistening in morning dew,

heady scent of honeysuckle wafting by windows we peer through.

Framed by the limits of imagination, ears cocked to the sparrow’s song,

sun setting on pyramids, creek beds, ice floes, desert flowers,

past our views of the world, ghosts carousing night winds

of our mourning, all the eyes on clear skies boasting stars above

moored cargo ships, snow capped peaks, the sweaty rainforests.

Our windows view the emptied harbors, farmlands and vineyards,

fire escapes and stoops. All of it emptied of the large and small

of our solitary pleasures in our fractured lives in this godawful air.