Who Knows? ..... Poem by RIC BASTASA

just wait, please just wait.

do not say, i am tired, just wait.
do not say, let it be, i want my
normal life back.

you wait, until the contagion blooms
and booms,
you wait until what is rare is the uninfected.
you wait, until dead bodies pile on the streets
and then no one is available to get some shovels
dig and bury them.

you wait when you are the one infected and then
isolated and then you die alone.

do not say, let the disease spread as it will
until everyone is dead.

do not say, i am fed-up, just wait, there will
be a solution to all these.
nothing is forever, even this pandemic,

so wait, just be cool and be reasonable.
follow the protocol.

who knows if we survive this and then
what is normal becomes us, all of us?