How We Quickly Become Accustomed

At first I thought, this can’t be happening.

Now I make cookies and more cookies
And teach myself to quilt from YouTube videos.

I’m terrible at it and don’t care.
The things that can’t happen are always happening.
My children haven’t been to school in ten weeks.
They haven’t seen their friends or gone to the library
Or played in the park or hugged anyone but us,
And we are the lucky ones, the ones who have it easy.
At first, when your life swerves
Onto a highway you never knew existed,
You squeeze the steering wheel
And keep your eyes straight ahead.

But soon enough you begin to notice
The new vegetation growing by the side of the road.
Pale blue-and-white flowers, strange yellow shoots,
Giant insects, arching palm fronds,
Like the understory of another planet.
Were they here all along?

We let the children stay up late now,
We all sleep as long as we want.
In the morning we snuggle on the couch
And eat Cheerios, we learn the parts of an ant’s
Body, we make models of our solar system,
We sprout avocado seeds and plant them.
Was this here all along, this surfeit of time?
This open field of late morning,
These deep wells of dream?