It is very quiet outside.
The voided roads gleam in their rare emptiness,
And silent frontages encase a different world
Of tense and expectant humanity, in whom our hopes reside.
Heroines and heroes toil tirelessly in hospitals old and new
Tending patients struggling with this new infection.
Can we control our growing alarm and introspection?
Do we have the knowledge and the spirit to see this crisis through?
Sadness and sorrow replace all else for every soul that’s died.
We who remain do not welcome our enforced idleness,
Replacing the rigours of our busy world with a different kind of stress,
And it remains very quiet outside.