April First, 2020
How would you feel
if today when you finally
agreed to turn on your TV,
computer, cell phone
to reconnect with a world
gone wrong, you found
the news that COVID-19
was all some pandemic
prank perpetrated by…
whom? Some world-
wide web of supposed
jokesters trying to teach
us to fear or change our
wasteful ways? That
now we could get back—
not to normal, but to
a new way of walking
on our fragile earth, a
deeper way of caring
for our neighbors and
ourselves, a surer way
of sharing the enough
that was always here?
What would be the first
thing you would do with
your new true freedom?
Rush to hug strangers?
Wrap your arms around
others and your own
closing us all in a small
circle of love? What
would you do then, when
every cell phone on
the planet blurbed at
once—April Fools!?
That is a joke that we sorely need right now.