Marking Quarantime

In the absence of the flow
of time as we knew it
we were restored to the
rhythm of daily bread,
and the need to wait
for the organic rising
of water and flour and yeast
and the nourishment
that comes from the
marriage of work and time.

In the absence of certainty
we cast the bones to
divine our fate and drank
wine to fortify the nerve
to take another day and
the next, and another,
watching those gamble
with life and death,
and drinking in the waste.

In the certainty of need
we gave to one another
the gifts of bread and love
and felt the pain of
absence and understood
anew the shattering loss
of a world that was
the loss of life, through
whatever disease
struck off our
beloveds.

And so we learned:
Life was short and
necessary, and suddenly,
we had all the time in the world,
and in the midst of dying,
there must be a rising--
of blood and sweat and tears
and the nourishment
that comes from the
marriage of work and time.

We must mark not days,
but history, for we
are perishing from our start.
It is not from nothing we come,
and to nothing we go,
but from and to everything,
and that thought
should also be
our daily bread.