Overly familiar with her defiance
patterns of fetal alcohol confusion,
neuro-systemic habits of resistance,

I, the consummate ecofeminist,
was sure my daughter felt
I was shutting wounded Ivy out
when she wanted me
to enter her toxic on-line
stream of Sponge Bob consciousness

When she came to me,
in self-care mode,
while I was meditating
reading
reflecting
writing
breathing deeply in,
then out

One gasp for hope
at a new pandemic time,
searching for one hour
without unmitigated despair
at this unhealthy contagion time,
one calming day at a time,
one therapeutic glimpse at a week,
one unimaginable month,
one lifetime of a year,

One retiring stage,
one quickly ancient life,
one emerging seamless love
at this time.

In exasperation
with her insistent interruption
in my sacred space,
I exclaimed
“Ivy, I can’t take care of you
if you won’t let me
take care of me!”

To which she replied,
“Can I sit here
quietly
next to you?”

I was skeptical,
cynical about cooperative deep breathing
with screaming screen-time Ivy,
but “You may,
if you can”

And so she did
sit next to me
at the head of my bed
where her paraplegic brother slept
post-seizure,

She leaned her black curled head
against my old white man shoulder
peacefully
breathing side by side

And that is how
we resiliently entered
into this passing
evolving
rising and falling,
erupting and disrupting pandemic
of Earth’s green
and sacred
virally emergent
health care.