Covid-19 (No.6)

Take a strand of RNA, tie a knot

And make a wish, count phases of the moon.

Pray nothing pernicious comes this way soon,

Or if it should then it doesn’t draw your lot.

One hundred years after the Somme ended,

Exercise Cygnus played H2N2

On the gaming table: Only, it’s not flu

But coronavirus that’s descended.

It seems predictions were catastrophic,

So, were noted and quietly filed away,

Until came the contagion, came the day

For the accounting of the mounting sick.

Austerity, efficiency, not fate

Has proved “just in time” is far, far too late.

                                                                                                                      Dave Alton

Covid-19 (N0. 5)

“Hugs and prayers and fasting”*, such Orthodox

Devotions set to tempt a partial god

To give our species of DNA the nod

Over a contrary strand, which unlocks

The cells of our isolation. When shocks

And calamities, suddenly insurgent,

Press in upon us from all sides, they dent

Man-made certainties, and our world rocks.

Adversity is proportioned by clocks

And in the time taken for it to pass

We are vulnerable to what’s thrown at us,

As hapless churls in medieval stocks.

Faith is better placed in vaccines and drugs

Than prescriptions for fasting, prayers and hugs.

                                                                                                                                  Dave Alton

*Response to Corvid-19 by an Orthodox church in the Ukraine, as reported on BBC Radio 4’s “Today” (14^th April, 2020)

Covid-19 (No.4)

“What is truth?” Pilate might have added, “Where?”

Can ministers of the crown really be

Our custodians of veracity?

Some welling spring of crystal wisdom is there

From which they sup, conferring clear insight

So that some sagacious course could be steered?

May be it’s hubris! When something’s appeared

That is challenging humans’ presumed might,

A scrap of DNA from the marches

At the bounds of life, maybe vanity

Should falter. Denizens of the city

Hold themselves hostage; if the cough reaches

Their door, it will be the doctor, the nurse

Who must know enough to assuage the curse.

                                                                                                                               Dave Alton