Castaway

Who ever might have imagined

that the ancient oblate spheroid that

resulted when a vacuum containing

nothing created a cosmic explosion

casting gases and dust in a great arc to 

cool and become our home, a rock of

refuge for nature's creations where we

would thrive and mature, populating

continents, sailing its seas, discovering

and conquering, would find us now in

such peril? Who might have imagined

there to be so many islands on Planet

Earth, each of them now claimed by

every human now alive and hoping to

remain that way clings to, isolating

ourselves from one another to elude

the stalking of the silent, deadly virus

that has invaded threatening our existence

with each tide of increase it succeeds in

achieving inhabiting another host who

in turn transmits its pathogenic guest

onward in its predatory quest to multiply

and destroy, a conquest it gains unless

prospective hosts sequester themselves 

to starve its intent and stave off death.