To Live Deliberately

When I walked ‘round Walden Pond
on a warm March day, I traced the foot-
print of the small cabin and wondered 
about Thoreau and his solitude, 
deliberate yet close to all he held dear.
 
Days later, home in my city, 
my eldest simmered and coughed.
I gathered her and her sister, pulled 
the door shut behind us and spun 
a soft space where we might keep safe.
 
We did not know then that the thick
walls would hush and dim the sounds 
of the street beyond, quiet and quieter, 
and create an echo chamber for the cough
unending of my fevered daughter.
 
The cough resounded in each chime
of my phone, the CNN, NPR, New York 
Times alerts, texts from friends, calls 
from the doctor. We heard the world 
shutter as she, then I, grew sick and sicker.
 
Alone in our city, I thought of Thoreau,
of his small pond and his long saunters,
of his dear Emerson who would come 
sit for a spell in the cabin in the woods, 
and leave his friend replenished.
 
When Thoreau emerged from the woods 
two years later, he was a changed man 
returned to a static world. But as we fought 
for sleep, for air, for life, we had no idea what
strange and silent world would await our return.