Definitions of a crisis

Swim out now into that blue/azure sea,

you're either a tourist or a refugee –

where you were born is everything

or nothing if you happened to be born

in places where such things don’t matter.

I have a passport: it’s changing colour

even as we speak. And the headlines bark

like stray dogs, like rabid warnings

of what we’re expected to believe –

and the easy allocations of blame.

Somewhere over the city clouds form,

but the mountain adopts autumnal promise –

completely out of season –

which is what this man crossing the road dismisses.

March 2020