Social Distancing

I am trying to be good

Walking alone

In the soft spring rain

Slight smile to each cautious passerby

I journey off the concrete path

Onto the muddy floor of the woods

I say hello to early may apples glistening with raindrops

Parallel deer tracks by the creek

Wondering if they are watching me from

Their foreign privet post

An arboretum stretches out before me

Calling me out to converse as I study their bark

And blooms

And twig patterns

I am trying

to be so good

Alone amongst the blooming pink redbuds

Our annual kinship is a welcome haven

From exhaust and challenges

In the distance the buffalo still roam close together in their herd

Inside the fence of Shelby Farms

No one tells them to be good

No one needs to hug them, slap them on the back, or shake their hand

They just keep roaming across their assigned land