We can do better
Hope that when masks come off, others
don’t come back on, for now our mouths
are covered, leaving us to detect
from eyes, smile from frown,
thin-lipped from generous,
warm from cold from angry.
Masks predate this cruel pandemic
far back to ancient times, covering
feelings and intentions beneath
stiff upper lips or poker faces,
worst of all fake smiles so
duplicitous you are gutted before
you ever see the knife, or
patriarchs behind adoring gazes,
racism behind political correctness,
invisible attacks under cover of “nice”,
the targets of which know full well what
is going on despite cover words:
strife unseen or unspoken by the
complacent or complacently complicit.
So many knees on so many necks
gone unnoticed, the uber-rich
throttling plebeians for eons
now, however well disguised.
Hope we can do better than normal,
like the masked and giving souls
feeding the hungry, comforting children,
treating the sick, standing for love,
emanating hope as fireflies do light,
in the darkness all around us.
We can do better than before as
so many have been showing us.
Covered faces make us discern
more carefully invisible intangibles,
things we did not really notice
before deaths opened our eyes.
~ Wry Welwood
March, 2021