quote for the week

You know the old saying, "May you live in interesting times."
Well, we're doing that now for sure.

This quote is by an Atlanic staff writer, James Parker.  If you want to hear him reading it, you can Google The Atlantic.

Coronavirus Prayer

by James Parker

Dear Lord,

In this our hour of doorknobs and droplets,

when masks have canceled our personalities

in this our hour of prickling perimeters, sinister surfaces. 

defeated bodies and victorious abstractions,

when some of us are stepping into rooms humid with contagion

and some of us are standing in the pasta aisle,

in this our hour of vacant parks and boarded-up hoops,

when we miss the sky-high roar of the city

and hear instead the tarp that flaps on the unfinished roof,

the squirrel giving his hingelike cry 

and the siren constantly passing, 

to You we send up our prayer as follow:

Let not the heebie-jeebies become our religion,

our new ideology with its own jargon.

Fortify us, Lord.  Show us how.

What would your saints be doing now?

Saint Francis he was a fan of the human, 

He'd be rolling naked on Boston Common.

He'd be sharing a bottle.  No mask or gloves,

sheilded only by burning love.

But I don't think we're in the mood

for feats of antic beatitude.

In New York City and in Madrid

the saints maintain the rumbling grid.

Bless the mailman and equally bless

the bus driver, vctor of steadfastness.

Protect the bravest the best we've got.

Protect the rest of us, why not.

And if the virus that took Jahn Prine

comes as it may for me and mine

although we've mostly stayed indoors,

well--then as ever, we're all Yours.

Until urther notice,

Amen.

W