10 The Meadow A Spring Day During the Covid Lockdown Lisa Zimmerman The lake is so flat and dull this morning it is a weight unto itself, the sky above it white and silent, the virus also, and invisible. I have told it to leave me and my older husband alone. Right now he is simmering tomatoes, onions, cheerful yellow peppers, and vegetarian sausage in a big orange pot that squats over a ring of flame. No, he is not singing. Yesterday, or the day before, he raked the old grass into small sheaves of last year. This year’s tiny blades rise in slow green beneath my feet as I walk the young dog out to the lake’s edge. We startle a Great Blue heron from the cattails and he carries our surprise across the water as he flies. On the path a strolling neighbor steers his black dog in an arc away from where I stand with mine. We wave to each other across an expanse of held breath, our hands lifting briefly into the clear air between us.
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