Covid-19 (no.3)

How long is long enough? Count the phases

Of the moon, reckon the seasons, or try

Some novel measure. This time will slip by,

Even a most dread-filled moment passes

As winter with all its flooding has done,

And though spring proves perfidious, with wind

That bites and sharper squalls of hail, we find

Our narrowed world glistered by rape seed sun.

Let us all spend Easter at home this year,

Breaking bread and passing the wine, sharing

Comfort and anxiety: what’s scaring

Us is not being able to see what we fear.

Yet green globin pulses through all that grows,

And come Good Friday, I’ll plant potatoes.

                                                                                                                  Dave Alton

Covid-19 (N0.2)

Spring sun risen from winter’s tomb,

Daffodils invigorate us,

Meanwhile in bleak, sterile rooms

Lie the breathless respirators.

It’s warm enough, so it appears,

To crowd together in the stores

And, while grabbing for bread and beers,

Share in passing the deadly spores.

Seedlings are sprouting in their trays,

About the beds shoots pushing through,

Tend the garden these troubled days,

Close the gate on the gaumless few.

Depends on what we cultivate;

There’s choice or chance, free will or fate.

                                                                                                             Dave Alton

Covid-19

There are no rats streaming off from rigged ships,

No bell clanging crier calling out the dead,

No trundling overburdened tumbrils led

By masked spectres as the malady grips.

No crosses daubed over doors, though handles

And handshakes could prove fatal. Fast as fear

This plague flies, a traveller’s souvenir

Round the carousel of the world, dandles

Life and death without intent or purpose

Other than its own being. City shaken,

Markets deserted and futures tumbling.

The preachers of profit are at a loss,

While pubs are closing, last orders taken.

Lock all the doors…but the walls are crumbling.

                                                                                 Dave Alton