The year we languished

came upon us as other times

before the pandemic; it stole 

the colors from our canvas

and left us a facade of smiling faces. 

Its ennui, the collective affect  

that eclipsed the light which was 

our path out of the void inside

each of God’s children. 

Someone said we ought to call 

a rose marred with ugly lines

by its proper name: despair.

But naming a thing, a heaviness

that floods your moments of joy

does not cancel it; for after 

this emptiness that lingers 

as shallow dreams on the earth, 

or as a mirage in our hearts, 

may yet appear the phantom call,

another niggling void, barren of the love

that once glistened like freshly fallen snow

on the sunny days we used to know;

sunny days—always beckoning—

and never leaving us unembraced.