Geoff is drawn to solitaire, cooking. I’m drawn
to humans — words, images, music. My focus —
imagining how words will go down with the species
as pandemic progresses — climate collapse continues.

I‘d been instructed — select a random book from
a bookshelf of poetry — find a random poem from
that book. It was about how things would be
without words sometime in the future.

We are floating in liminal time — we do not even know
if there will be a future. So there will be many places—
with no words. After finding a poem, we were asked 
to
write on the theme we found bouncing around in it.

We’ve been dealing with grief about uncertainty —
climate collapse will end human kind, its associated
species. I was overcome with thoughts of the imminent
impact of overpopulation of humans’ horrific behavior.

I had a terrifying vision, a waking dream— compelled by,
ashamed of. I sensed a pandemic coming that would
affect only humankind and affect them democratically.
It would take out an unfathomable number of us

With an exact and egalitarian illness. It would slow us down.
Furthermore, it would slow down climate collapse significantly.
However, it was brutal. It seemed it might take down half
the species or just finish the whole thing.

I didn’t know more than that, but I knew language
was about to experience either a complete end or
a phenomenal transformation — as dramatic as any
wipeout of humans. I saw that.

A few months later, I shyly mentioned my vision to
an Italian historian, an old friend— he was repulsed
beyond measure — ranting. I never imagined we
would end this way — yet, I did dream it.

A year later, on this nubile hill in the Santa Cruz
mountains, the dream has arrived. It is, in fact,
an initiation like none other. Wanting to protect
Geoff from this scourge — wanting us to be among

The survivors, yet I know, deep under this desire — any
legacy will be a lengthy undoing. Encompassed by toxic
smoke and ash, from the California wildfires,
I felt compelled to write about it.

Now it would seem ash — still particulate — has been
replaced by a phenomenon far more lethal — invisible
droplets — entering the body, sticking to surfaces.
Ash Mothers have morphed into Corona, the Queen,

The Crone, Death Mother. Perhaps She will restore
balance. Yet human loss, grief will be endless. In the
night, practicing tonglen — breathing in sorrow, pain —
so many, breathe out love — along with sorrow, pain.

What from my past must I uncover to make this initiation
right? I forsook the vocation of journalist. I could not bear
the job of a cub reporter asking the wife, whose husband
has been cut down in a gun fight, “How does it feel?”

I am home now — the commentator asking a small girl
hiding under a tiny desk in a schoolroom, “How does it
feel — expecting the world to explode,
taking you alongside?”