2020

  

For many, it was a wasted year

As all things ground to a halt

And life became a snapshot, static

Like an old television

Caught between channels

And flannel pyjamas replaced

Business suits, meetings took place

In virtual spaces, faces peering out

Of living rooms, portraits watching each other

From distant galleries

As salaries dwindled or vanished overnight

And flights were grounded, the sound

Of clapping echoing through neighbourhoods

Fumbling governments promising

Makeshift livelihoods,

And those who used to work for a living

Settled in to a new routine,

Watching the ghost of football

Kicked across a screen

Another stream, a film previously seen

Small comforts

Small hopes, small lives growing smaller

Relegated to four walls, like a prison scene

Some shared cells with loved ones,

Others with their tormentors,

Others with tubes and masks and despair

Busy hands shrink-wrapped in plastic gloves

Consent forms hastily signed in trembling lines

Tiny moments of kindness competing with denial

Men in presidential palaces completing their betrayal

Ambulance wails bringing sound to soundless towns

Tears shed into hospital gowns,

Headlines heralding false hopes

And rising numbers

Political figures repeating blunder after blunder

And actors leaving the stage, music growing dim,

Lights of cities fading out.

For many, looking up, it was the first time

That they could see the stars in the sky

Breathe the clean air, just for a moment,

Hear the sound of living things rustling

No longer shut out by the endless bustling,

And inside small rooms, devices were turned off

Board games, covered in dust, were reopened

Families sat together, sliding tokens over tables

Sharing old fables from the times before

Rediscovering the warmth at the core.

 

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© Copyright David Marriott  all rights reserved­.