Curiouser and curiouser, isn’t it
How everywhere we see nature reviving
As we humans abide in restless peace

Decaying bodies rest in trucks
Outside a Brooklyn funeral home
While the air clears of smog
In cities throughout the world

Empty planes rest on tarmac
In nearly abandoned airports
While dolphins and fish swim
In cleaner Venetian canals

Basketball nets rested slack
Throughout this new March madness
While a fox, not of the human variety
Investigates Downing Street

Shopkeepers and schoolchildren rest at home
Perhaps not content, but in something like stillness
While an elk peers in the window
Of a closed shop in Banff

We humans may rest only restlessly
And, for some, resentfully
But much else in the world
Seems to rest in new-found peace.

If only we could learn the secret
If only we did not need death
To teach us how to
Requiescat in pace