Mutual Solitude

I see you, my two-legged neighbor stopping and standing at the yellow-tape barricade to my home. I wonder where you all have been? I miss you walking on your looped path through my backyard with wires going into your ears and those branches you carry as you walk, the headbands on the fast-walkers and the colorful shoes of some. I DON’T miss the smaller two-legs who try to chase me up a tree or those barking four-legs that try to eat me for lunch! But I DO miss you quiet ones who seem to adore the serenity of my home – smelling flowers, listening to birds, admiring trees, beholding the sky’s colors at sundown, tossing nuts or bread crumbs to my kind. What you call ‘social-distancing’ I call a way of life… Mutual respect, Mutual solitude. Written 6 Apr 2020