Tuesday 14 April 2020

Zoom Squares

On Easter Sunday morning, I got up early to watch the sun rise over the city. Despite my later tiredness, I was very glad I did. Birmingham, silent beneath a colourful sky fading from darkness to light, is beautiful.

As I watched, this phrase, "The earth still turns and the sun still rises" came to me: I think I was struck by something of the things that remain certain when the whole world seems to have been turned upside down.

That, I thought, is the beginning of a poem.

It was, but by the time it came together it didn't include those words, despite my best efforts to shoehorn them back in somehow. Perhaps there's another one waiting to be written at some point. Perhaps not.

In the meantime, that became this.

(*Despite not particularly liking the sound of my own voice, I think it works better listened to than read so ...)


It is here, perhaps
In this the space
Where everything changes
That we discover
That these the cords
Which tied us down
Were
In fact
The bonds which bound us
To a reality
We at least kind of understood
The anchor
Now cut adrift 
From all we thought we knew
To be true
We don't quite know
Where we will go
But we will find
We're intertwined
With others who
Apart, together
Still turn me
Towards you

Suddenly
Almost overnight
All these the people
Who once were
Flesh and blood
With outstretched arms
And hugs
To hold us close
Became
Zoom Squares
Just
Moving pictures on a screen
And yet
Though slightly out of focus
From that we thought we knew
They smile at us
And we at them
And so
While we may freeze or falter
We realise
The connections has not
In fact
Been lost
And there is hope
Because
They still turn me
Into us.

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