How many a man sits down, takes up his pen
but cannot gauge the needed word
for darker ink of dread?

How many a woman has there been
who’s known the weight of infant on her breast
and now sups sadness with her bread?

So take your sadness with your bread,
the surprising cocktail of remorse
will follow in due course.

Tears drop gently on your cheek,
no scream comes strangling with brute force.
Escape it will, in viral flow. In due course.

With luck death will close you in a careful prayer,
for others: fiery burns and worse.
These all must follow. In due course.

Miscalculations of our human hearts,
pathetic entertainments of the hungry rich,
send warning shots across the common hearth.

Seas could yet remultiply and hold,
the upper air relearn the harmonies of change,
we can return to error within our once and normal range.

How many a woman will know such sadness in her breast?
How many a man in dread will learn remorse,
as regrets eventually attack – too late and in due course?