The Danforth Anchor

Thank God for breath,

and for disasters,
the most forceful askers
which bid us now
step up our game. . .

Thank God for sweat,
for air,
for masks,
and bicycles.

When normal daily
acts of ease
have turned quite hard,

and air is surely not the best,
this gal,
well, well. . .
she must go yet
from place to place,

and, once she hits
her striding pace,
she finds

an imperfect, but a welcome, break
from indoor walls
and stuffy halls
with windows closed
around the clock
day and night through,
or else the best that cabin-feverish spirits,
+++++in their lust for simple earth and air and sky,
can do,

while still the land and valley
harbors smoke
that can’t just vent
up through a flue,

and as we cross
the strangers on the street
or else the bus,
and in this moment quite miraculous,
we somehow see
that we’re all part of one another–
I and you, and they and he and she–

for now, more calm
as willingly
the shrunken air
strewn out from ravaged land
we share,

and a new cordiality
descends on us,
surprising,

and though it may turn out
it will be fleeing,
for now, it settles, stands
perhaps still rising,

but in this little moment here,
it’s certainly
beyond compare.