Pandemic Hymn

Pandemic Hymn
By Michael Bonikowsky

Be not afraid
Of the numbers on the news
Rumours in the ransacked aisle
Horror stories in your head.

If the worst-case comes to pass
And the prophets played it safe
If the doomsday clock is slow
And the preppers underprepared

Then we’ll all be side by side
Tucked into our lime pit
And resting from our troubles
When he stands upon the earth.

Come again, our lonely Lord,
To sift the nations’ ruin
The ashes of our glory
For the only thing he’s missed

If it takes a thousand years
He’ll find our every fragment
Every tooth for every skull,
Sort out your bones from hers, and mine.

He’ll knit us back together
Every single numbered hair
He’ll call us out of the earth
Every body by its name.

Be not afraid.
So the angels always say
Who have seen how humans die
And what humans are raised to.

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Michael Bonikowsky
Poet & Personal Support Worker

Photography by Ida M.H.W. Perez