It appeared as a gateway in the sky
A portal to other possibilities
Though, perhaps, few saw it that way
Panic gripped much of the world
Keeping them inside, locked away
Sharing their fear and uplifting messages
Of hope and determination to see it through
Sharing their confusion and conspiracy theories
Simplistic and simple-minded explanations
Of a phenomenon clearly no one understood

The defiant ones
The violent ones
Threw fists in the air
Angry slogans on cardboard
Rallied outside the labs and government offices
Where the people who obviously cared
Desperately tried to calm the population
While they developed theories and protocols
Used every tool of reason and science
In an effort to understand
The gateway’s true nature

Frustrated by
Exhausted by
All the certainties in an uncertain time
The whole grand chaos of truths and lies
I went out of town
Up on a hillside overlooking the valley
Felt the warmth of the sun
As it burned through the gateway
The borders of which undulated
Expanded and contracted
Like a living thing
With rhythms as indiscernible
As the nature of the object itself

I only wished I could fly
Get to the other side
Of whatever had opened the hole in the sky
Be done with all that was unfolding
On this side
The sun seemed like it was reaching
Through the gateway
Beckoning
With a promise of something much better
Than we’d ever known on this side

Or maybe it was just me
Hoping that this time
We’d learn lessons of no small value
And change the world which had existed
Long before the gateway ever appeared