Ron Padgett said this in his Now You See It poem from back when

(not all that long ago really, but everything feels long ago any more)

back when before the change

before the virus ran rampant across a country and then a globe

who knows, maybe across a universe we are still discovering after all

the before when citizens wore blindfolds of trust for their leaders and

masks built the illusion of security and safety

before

our eyes opened under the scrim of vision through the

veil we’d been walking under collectively there

were those fighting the cobwebbed covering

batting furiously away its billowing before their eyes

others eyes

they have done good work some have begun to see but not

all seeing is honest not

all vision is keened positively where

are the ones now long exhausted the others who

will raise the blinds from the eyes now emerging from the long dark shadows?