Everything has stopped
Except our beating hearts
This fear, anxiety
Dread
To curtail viral spread
Those things by which we
Often measure passing time
Are gone
Birthday parties, Easter family dinners
Clubs, days out, hanging with friends
Forbidden
Passover is still kept
But changed and
Separately
Oh for a cultural tradition of my own
I could cling onto
Instead in Lockdown, we English
Have changed, seem to be talking more
Greeting fellow walkers with smiles and waves
Nature is apace, pushing forward
Birds sing in the absence of traffic
A blue tit perches in my unused car
Flowers bloom, trees bud
Life burdgeons joyously
In the human world
It is as if the month of March
And, so far, a good part of April
Has been cancelled
Just our still beating hearts
And this fear, anxiety
Dread
Copyright © 2020 Kim Whysall-Hammond