Somehow We Will Get Through This

Somehow We Will Get Through This

I want to be a foil for all the bad news, to
hold up my phone at some future concert
as my part of the ovation, screen glowing

like Planet Earth in the Blue Marble photo,
a luminous dot in the dark closet of our
galaxy. Of course things are bad now. But

maybe it's enough to remember today's air
smelled of hay and cider. Do you understand?
We are walking this field in a twilight that—

yes—comes sooner than it did a few weeks ago,
but the dusk is rich with the song of katydids,
sweet little katydids, my husband says, who

calls all animals sweet, even the brown bat that
somehow got into our bedroom, the one he just
this minute draped a towel over to carry out of

the house, where it glided into the new night
and its still leaves. He was holding the bat
before him like a curio, offering it as a gift, with

his hands cupped. I could feel its heart pound,
he told me. It must have been so afraid! The bugs
were still jingling and I stood with him on the

porch. Over in my sister's place, across the way:
the cool, dolorous flicker of TV news. Somehow we
will get through this. I don't know how, but we will.