Pass Over

What will I tell my children at the seder table this year?

That before the milk and honey there must be bitterness of tears?

That before we can sing songs of freedom, we must endure hardship and pain?

That we sit at a table full with food, chairs empty, absent of the those we would have celebrated with.

That our songs of enslavement are sung, echoing

in the empty room

big enough to hold us all, comfortably, for weeks on end.

That the story of enslavement echoes 

What shall I tell my children at the Seder table this year?

He, a false prophet, embodiment of a long, dormant illness—that has risen to the top. 

The virus, has been with us a long while. The anger, the 

The first outbreak 9-11; each flare up, the virus getting stronger, bolder.

Feeding on money and fear.

Until it rose to the top, an underlying malignancy that took over the body. And raged.

Against itself. And looked for new hosts, in Italy, and Hungary, in England and India. 

To replicate, morph and then, satiated, return to itself.