The pandemic revealed something interesting about which jobs are really “essential.” It opened a dialogue about priorities and it’s a conversation that’s not over. That was the inspiration for this week’s poem.
In Praise Of
They are the ones
Perhaps
You took for granted —
When the trash
Magically disappeared
From your curb
When the package
Magically appeared
At your step
When the a/c broke
The floor flooded
The fridge clunked out
The dryer stopped spinning
The Internet went down
And you fumed
At the “ridiculous” delay
At the “outrageous” cost
And now
In this time of slowing
In this time of really looking
Around
Hopefully we’ll notice
The importance
Hopefully we’ll truly
See
And maybe
When this is all said and done
We will have shifted
Value
A bit more
Where it belongs.