A 20:20 Vision

 

On the one hand, it’s thumbs up for this lock down,

For hand on heart, I prefer a gentler town.

We’ve lost our human contacts, now back in touch,

A world for reaching out, with more time and much 

Space for taking and for making stock.

We knead our dough, and minds unlock,

And saws are sharpened in this time of rest,

When breath and nature seem to teach the best.

We do not need the rush, nor miss the stress,

The fuss, pressure, the crush… I must confess -

Although at first it seemed to fall in an abyss -

I did not anticipate I would get used to this.

In sun we sit, mocking busy bees,

Listening to petty squabbles, birds in trees, 

Our sights now set lower, just beyond our fence,

And fear of illness, losing friends, now makes us tense.

We wonder at the wonder weather and whether

This race is one we’ll win together,

Clap for those who died, who set their lives aside, who cared,

Whose human love and toil we all admired and wish we shared.

 

On the other hand, with fingers crossed,

It’s back to work to find the lives we lost.

Gloves slip on, we tug on masks

And set ourselves to show resolve in this new task

To turn our hands to, freshly washed,

Our fears of safety now to shadows tossed.

They ask us now to put our shoulder to the wheel,

With work routines to structure some appeal.

But many feel that now all life has changed, 

A simpler way of living now can be arranged,

Without the queues of spewing trucks and cars,

Or drunken stumbling clubs from rowdy bars,

Or packing bags for buses, taxis, planes

To cramped resorts we hear it rarely rains.

As shopping centres fully stocked and stacked,

And each new case is "safely" traced and tracked,

The world is littered, sea with plastic chokes,

The earth is on a ventilator now, it’s broke.

But this one thing I hope will now be true,

Less of the normal, and much more of the new.

 

M x