Moth (Gundy)

Moth

Tomorrow a new walk is a new walk.

            -A.R. Ammons, “Corsons Inlet”

Because a new walk tomorrow is another

because today on our walk there were buds breaking

out from the bushes like a toddler’s questions

because the sun sidled out later and with it

every cloistered couple and their baby

every grizzled man and his wife who looks younger

because a month ago we thought things were terrible

the blatherers and the greedy competing for airtime

we groaned and complained and prayed for better

weather better men better women and got

only the virus   the virus   the virus and lengthy

instructions on how to protect ourselves how to

sterilize our groceries our takeout our nostrils

and fingers and phones and shoes and tonsils

because like God the virus is everywhere

but hard to see because the virus is barely alive

and thus hard to kill because the virus cannot

survive heat but can live for years in the cold

because the tests are insufficient the masks

are few and possibly faulty the ventilators should

have been multiplied months ago because meanwhile

the moth flutters under the kitchen cupboards

the brown inscrutable moth that hurts nothing

that means nothing that flutters innocent and

delicate and private and un-lovely into

the darkness   into the dawn   into the day

and on today’s walk there is a new old heron

with years of practice at social distancing

and a dozen geese clumped on the quarry

and an old friend who hangs up when she sees us

and we talk for twenty minutes just because

        Jeff Gundy’s recent books of poems include Without a Plea (Bottom Dog, 2019), Abandoned Homeland (Bottom Dog, 2015), and Somewhere Near Defiance (Anhinga, 2014). Recent work appears in Georgia Review, The Sun, Christian Century, Image, and Cincinnati Review. He teaches at Bluffton University in Ohio.