Get Better Soon

The aisles are bare,    
No food to find in there,  
Everyone is panicked,    
But in a calm sort of way,    
There is no violence    
That I have seen, personally.  
No anger on the faces,  
Of the strangers on the street.    
But the tension is visible  
If you look deep,    
I feel it just beneath the surface,    
Evidenced by the pizza place  
Only 3 miles away,    
That was held up at gunpoint  
Just yesterday.    
Uncertainty, even temporary,  
Has sent shivers    
Through our quiet "safe" little city.    
Losing 2 jobs in one day,    
Is now common place.    
I am not the only one,    
Whose life changed in one day.    
The students that I helped teach    
Are now only reached virtually.    
My research was gone    
Just overnight it seems.    
Hours of work,    
And a competitive fellowship grant,    
All belong to a place called yesterday.    
What a strange sensation,    
To look back and see    
How naive it was,    
To think this would all be over    
In a week.    
They've shut it all down,    
To protect the weak.    
Now I laugh,    
Uncomfortably,    
And shake my head in pity,    
As others fail to see  
The seriousness of this story.    
The hardest part is,    
No one listens when the alarm bells ring,  
A heed that goes unheard,    
It seems the only cure for their ignorance is the one that only experience can bring to those who are only in the beginning.    
Every country, every state,    
Has written it off...initially,    
Until it's too late to stop the spiraling of the cities at the mercy of the disease.    
Two weeks ago my world  
Was completely different.    
The longer it goes on the more I see,  
This will take much longer  
To get back to normal,  
Than I could have dreamed.