How It’s Always Been

100 years from now

they will sit in churches

and worship in wide circles

6 feet apart

wearing masks as Sunday best.

No singing, no passing of peace,

the bread untouched, unbroken.

An illness, long-eradicated,

has canonized the distance.

Like so much else in such a time,

it may not be touched,

or breached

or re-told.

And the young ones will say

‘why can’t we sit together?’

and

‘why can we not sing?’

and

‘what are you so afraid of?’

And the elders will answer

‘We don’t remember,’ and

‘it must be written somewhere,’

and

‘It’s just that

this is how it’s always been.’