There’s nothing fortunate about his stroke,
except it happened twenty months ago,
before Coronavirus came to choke
the hospitals and propagate the woe.

It would have been more challenging last year,
when I was out of house all winter through.
My cottage needed work; I sheltered near
without my daily comforts, making do.

The children in my life were younger then.
They would have been more needy and confused.
It’s difficult to hear them question when,
but not as hard to keep them all amused.

Imagine how compound the tragedy,
if we’d the dreaded earthquake on our plate,
or if we battled flames concurrently.
We get to concentrate on one bad fate.

And though I’m aging steadily through this
obnoxious break, discovering new cracks
and bumps, massaging spots of tenderness,
I don’t need medicine for these attacks.

We’re in a mess. We suffer sad reverse.
But timing could
and future may
be worse.