the day AND died

Did you hear AND died?

Did you know God cried?

½ million people in the U. S.

A.lone

Have lost their AND

They exist no more

They are seen no more

Gone

In the covid roar.

30 million people in the U. S.

A.lone

Gasping for air

Grasping for strands

of hope,

of fair

ness,

of breath

less

repair.

Did you know?

AND is a precious commodity

More precious than gold

Than emeralds

Than titanium

Or uranium.

You cannot buy it

Trade it

NFT it

Or bitcoin it.

It is impervious

to manipulation

intervention

monetization

emasculation

or feminization.

It knows no gender

no race

no zip code

no place.

It escapes detection

direction

disaffection

or dissection.

AND simply is

(until it is not). But when it is not…

AND was our off-spring, our baby, our child.

AND was our linguistic genius, gone wild.

AND was God-given, so natural, so right

That we never conceived

Never believed

It ever could

Never would

Vanish from sight.

It can't be, God said

How can AND be dead?

What's over the hill of eternity?

There must be more

In the species store

Than a teaspoon of pusillanimity.

But when covid arrived

AND couldn't survive

Under this blast of insanity.

Was it only a dream?

A programmer's scheme

To delay the inevitability?

If there is no AND

Then the human hand

Has created its own final eulogy.

If there is no AND

Then the promised land

Sinks beyond the reach of all sanity.

Have you heard AND died?

Did you know God cried?

No.

And?

c. Corinne Whitaker 2018 - 2021

Notes: Adapted from "AND", Corinne Whitaker, 2018