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.