Ode To A Pandemic Poem by David Rivers

Tonight…upon my soul I bear,
the weight of those last breaths,
drawn in pain and fear of departing,
with final thoughts of why, and is this all?
Heavy in my heart the agony of passing,
lighter than the clods of earth that follow.

Brothers and sisters falling away,
in a place so relentlessly normal,
in a time when most should die of age,
only chance or luck may rise to save.
How does an end of days come now,
with summer breezes soft on our cheeks?

Man's hatred of man the engine drives,
to fateful ends of all beginnings.
Released upon the world so thoughtlessly,
no word can stop or summons to return.
Dice by man's own hand were thrown,
only God's hand man's fate postpones.