I have been contemplating this Shelter-In-Place time and the complexity of feelings I have.
I remembered this poem I wrote a couple of years ago. I had so much variety in my CEO job–activity of every hour and every day was different. I loved that. And yet…

Stone On the Cairn of My Secret Life

Waves slam steep cliffs
spraying the barnacled basalt
only to retreat again
in asthmatic, wheezing sighs.

I emerge from my spare hut
into dawn. Albatross silhouetted
against a pale robin’s-egg sky
call, glide, and dive.

No other humans on the wind-scoured island,
yet multitudes of lives,
jostling, calling, fighting, dancing, mating.
I no longer smell the nests, ripe fish,
and white-streaked rocks.

I have been here for months.
Sea breezes shift, bringing sweetness
of lantana, palo santo, and green dampness
from the next island across the strait.

Finches peck around my rough bench
in the growing light.
One tastes my shoe lace, unafraid.
I log a new bird’s short beak and forked tail.

I’ll work for an hour, identifying and counting,
leave off for breakfast and Bach,
and prepare to make the circuit of my island,
check the equipment, take measurements,
add sand grains of data to knowledge.