In the Beginning   In the beginning it was just a word — some kind of bug, a blip in the news, another ambient danger, like murder and bad service and diaper rash — the dues for being alive, one more thing to think about. It began to cover the sun and we said this isn’t happening, sinking into the sea isn’t happening, none of this is real, unpredicted eclipses cannot occur, we cannot allow it. Then all at once night — and time was stripped of meaning, birds stopped singing in a clouded starless sky. No hint of dawn. We must have failed to see this coming, most of us.     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont September 2020