Snapsong 108

By Niyi Osundare

We breathe the same air

We live and die beneath the same sky

We sing different anthems

But our melodies rally to a common Song

COVID mocked the moon

Re-ordered the calendar

Tumbling budgets clash with truncated dreams

Hours stagger into idle epochs

Vaulting vulnerabilities, dire disablements

Grief’s tight-textured face

Stony syllables of the language of Pain

Thunderous riot of hungry stomachs

Behold the murderous pandemic of toxic rulers

The credulous crowd of fickle followers

The terrible visibility of a Foe Unseen

Gory epic of a plague foretold

But Noble Science to the rescue,

(In its healing way, and most humane)

Its boundless possibilities of Knowing

That tamed the terror of the pox, then, polio

And so here we are

Measuring distance by the speed of a droplet

COVID re-draws the map of our world

Even as sunrise lingers beyond its morbid darkness