Ghost Nation

The customary haunts are empty;

Echoes of footfalls do not intrude

On the slumber of malls, arenas, and beer halls.

The people are gone, as if

A dreaded nuclear blast had occurred,

Cleansing cities of erectile inhabitants.

And yet, be patient!

The humans are under lock and key,

Concealed, trading one set of ruts for another.

At a given hour, they will emerge

Like moths, to creep or maybe flutter

Along the walkways, with six-foot margins,

As prescribed.

Note the processions

Of mummers and their odious mutts,

(I love critters but hate enslavement),

Pooping across the greening lawns.

There are two good things to come out of this,

This duck and cover and hide hysteria,

If true--and I hope it is:

A decline in our usual wastefulness,

What with each paper towel being precious,

And impetus to get out into open air

To enjoy the transient joys of the season,

To soak up beauty with all its radiance

Before a more serious epidemic,

One less likely to leave survivors,

Turns virtual ghost towns into real ones.

Reviews

[John the Baptist]

A somber but accurate picture of our present predicament. This afternoon I noticed the parking lot of a usually busy shopping center was utterly barren of vehicles. The last part of the poem noted one of the few possibly positive results of this plague, that people will have a newfound appreciation of things they had formerly taken for granted. As to the part about future epidemics, one pestilence is all I can deal with at a time.