Bruce Willard​’s poem, ​“Song Spar­row”, cap­tures with such inti­ma­cy, the inter­rup­tion of the com­fort­ing rit­u­als of time: sea­sons chang­ing, chil­dren grow­ing old­er, water under the bridge, the world con­tin­u­ing its march. Here, in the midst of this, our long and tumul­tuous pan­dem­ic ​“sea­son”, I am struck by how famil­iar the breath­less­ness that Willard describes feels. As with the best poems, the famil­iar­i­ty is formed through empa­thy — some­thing that poet­ry teach­es us, again and again.