Future. Redefined

I don’t know what future holds
If heaven blue or hell unfolds
Seek what divine words expose
Or read the science fiction prose?

In dire times minds go numb
To fright and panic we succumb
Not all. But we don’t venture far
In plans and needs. That’s how we are

Yet future patiently awaits
The moment of the open gates
Now, free, oh where do we walk
What we accept, at what we balk?

I can’t believe how fragile was
This solid world before ‘the pause’
Upended, burned, padlocked and shut
I want it back, the daily rut

It may return yet, with a change
In rewrites, lifestyles, habits strange
Attack and win, to perish ills
Make progress in the medicinal skills

Would paper money be passe
And ‘work from home’ become cliche?
Could humans quit forlorn rat race
Seek simpler living to embrace?

I have no answers yet to these
Today tomorrow’s hiding keys
Big freezе, a waking call to men
It is about ‘if’ and ‘when’

And those thinking - not the crowd
Would take to grounds yet unplowed
Where fame and vanity means less.
The virus acts as litmus test

Some will forget as light turns ‘on’
They wouldn’t remember those gone
But that we must. We wince in yelp
For those lost we couldn’t help

Check time. Epoch is Holocene
We are exposed, now and then
The Earth is old. The people are not
Tectonic sneeze is what we caught

Just went through small Jurassic shock
This was the Nature’s lightest knock
Begin re-building, once go free
We’re ready. Wouldn’t you agree?

Mankind. Unites or separates
Hold on to families and mates
Become despondent, and to fade.
These are the choices to be made…

April 12, 2020
New York, USA
© 2020 by Edward Kritsky