Shopping Days In Gran’s time, weekend shopping was ceremonial. They used to dress-up, wearing hats and scarves anchored with brooches, smart shoes and special handbags – used only once a week. They took an early bus to town, paid for out of woven cloth purses that snapped shut. Those were shopping days, with much to do, finished off with tea and sandwiches at a favourite department store, with piano music that tinkled in the background. We’ve just recently revived that weekly tradition. But our lock-down shopping days happen, whenever we feel we’ll miss those queues. We [...]

Transfixed to a Curve When will we begin to truly see. We watch screens tinged with red circles and ascendant, ski-slope curves. We start to feel that desperate need to escape all that is happening around us. We seek what we know or are familiar with, as ways of re-assuring us that we’re just in something temporary. It’s like we must watch a mythical global-games commentary, truly transfixed to see if our curve has peaked and if there is a place where this force of nature prevails. Where our capacity for resilience and coping might just [...]

The poem tonight comes in two forms.  One being the words which find a way of combining to generate a way of considering what is happening around us in new ways.  The other is a picto-poem (see link below) – where words and imagery are combined to engage and create more sensory feel for what’s being said.  Let me know how it changes or adds to what you read. This universal silence (words) There’s an unfamiliar silence in our world, one that floats over lakes, dams and ponds. Forests or walks - where we used to [...]

owning my truth (In honour of ‘There’s a Hole in my Sidewalk’ by Portia Nelson) i walk out through my door. there is an unnerving silence that greets me. i hesitate....feeling uncertain and helpless. this virus isn’t my fault. it takes all of me to start walking. i walk out through my door again. the unnerving silence is still there. i hesitate again....i’m curious about my uncertainty. i look for who to blame for the virus. it still takes a lot for me to start walking. i walk out through my door once more. the silence [...]

A Language of Optimism We are being challenged in these times to use new language when we speak. Resilience: not simply the ability to resist– more the suppleness of a tree that bend in an enraged South-Easter, as it bounds back to a unique, singular shape. Endurance: more than simply lasting – rather the riverine tenacity of water, as it cuts its way from up-country escarpments, to a majestic oceanic conclusion. Commitment: far beyond mere steadfastness – but an ability to rise from that bed we sunk into last night, to stand firmly into our newly [...]

Letter from a Virus Dear citizens of earth, I need you to stand, sit or lie down - to listen to my voiceless words. You have seen me appear as a whisper and then flare up like an inferno across a dried-out grassland. In days, weeks at most months, your lives have been upended, the existence you have known, all but dismembered. Charts that track my passage look like split drops of deep red wine, spreading, blurring and blotting out counties, countries and continents. Wuhan, then Wellington, Wyoming - even Waterval Boven. Some of [...]

Hope we don’t simply want to be weeds in a plot that’s become empty and overgrown, or grass that’s now begun to cover pavements left empty in our lockdown. or leaves blown in the autumn wind. we need become blazing proteas – named after Proteus, son of the greek god poseidon. he could transform himself into different shades and shapes. we need now to speak in profound words. beyond the elaborate and overbearing ones, we normally offer as praise or hope, or gratitude. we need to dig deep within for these new words. words [...]

As Winter Comes Our streets are silent again tonight. This malaise has its own way of being hushed and soundless. An absence of others around us dawns deeper as each day passes. We’re sliding inexorably into autumn in this Southern Hemisphere. We’d become so used to the sun burning off clouds and weather, that might have held us down. Perhaps this year, as autumn fades into winter, we might have to pick each tree bare of dead leaves. Come spring we may have to sow them back again, tree by tree. We’re being asked to find [...]

Shrinking Back We once conquered this world and blithely defined our own borders and land masses. We naively drafted maps, argued and fought over who belonged where, and kept redrawing them – when it didn’t suit our purpose. Now the world has claimed itself back and redraws its own patterns. Daily maps of this globe get covered in silent circles of viral spread– like blotting paper marked in contagious red ink. This did not need to happen, but it has. Lines get redrawn by the earth itself, as more borders close each day. Some [...]

A Mystical Virus Let’s not pretend - we never saw it coming, we did. Let’s not pretend – we didn’t hear the cries, we heard them. Let’s not pretend – we’ve never seen this before, we forgot that it happened previously, in other times. Let’s not pretend – we weren’t fully aware, we just didn’t listen when it first appeared. Let’s not pretend – we didn’t know what to do, we delayed to do the necessary. Let’s not pretend – we weren’t living in fear, we felt like running, with nowhere to go. Let’s [...]