While We Stay at Home

Charles Becker

I want to be the one who sets table with white cloth

then lights candles in yellow saucers,

the one who puts the spoon next to a knife,

centers plates, then folds the napkin,

I want to be the one who pulls out your chair

touches your back, and smiles, the one who speaks

of gardens, grows tulips and hydrangeas

gladiolas with hollyhocks, and then becomes

quiet enough like sunlit spring azaleas

to bring charity with handpicked bouquets.

I want to be the one who whispers

about coming health and easy breaths

where they hide and how they will abide.

Life stuns, you know, when it suddenly does

what we didn’t expect, taking away, ending,

and then starting again with changed landscapes.

Today we are lucky, though, as we slowly fold

laundry, make a sandwich, walk from room to room

holding hands, and share. I am the one who sees

a new moon cupped between clouds, and expects

you will always know the safety of camellia petals

by palm trees, neatly broken fronds or scattered

showers of pollen, steel gray hills edged with blush

and winter desert dry, night’s first stars through

open windows, sparkling specks of sundown,

and of course honeybees, faithful worker ones

who crawl inside the mouths of fully readied roses

to teach us what will likely happen next.