Spring Clean

Poem Number Six

I wrote this poem in the Spring merging into the Summer of 2020 when even though it was Spring the weight of the pandemic was becoming apparent.

From the beginning my Mama warned “it’s in the air” and I did not credit this insight

Thinking she was overreacting !

The obsession with cleaning is just a physical reaction in the light of new evidence that the virus is actually airborne

Take care everyone…….

In the time of Covid-19 forced isolation live-in

A howling wind speaks in

whispering threatening tongues.

Mad curls of anguished gusts carry a

heavily weighted sickness, in the air.

An enormity of sadness engulfs the world.

Peeling away established built structures of work patterns and of life routines.

These are replaced with

honeycomb pocket dreams of

how life used to be.

Certainties become ethereal

in upside down living

And, established practices are no longer workable, for fear of infection from other peoples dubious lifestyle habits.

And, public announcements of suspicions of other persons cleanliness

becomes commonplace.

A spring clean of everyday practices is

to be done thoroughly, each second, if

inevitably, humans wish to continue to breathe.

A plate of food is now shunned

for fear of ingesting emissions from

a strangers glands,

A recipe becomes a feared concoction which

could kill a person who harbours a weakened immune system.

And a meal cooked and constructed by a celebrity chef is no longer celebrated

instead, it becomes a plate of a possibly infectious toxic mixture.

Bacteria added through manipulation.

Although, initially honest in its composition and free from corruption.

From precious fertile clean soil, it has travelled to become a

platter of potential poison, unless the celebrated chef and the server

have both worn protective gloves and managed not to shower the sustenance with droplets of the virus from an unmasked mouth and nose.

There is a tremble of emotional roots

that were previously hidden and buried underground.

No longer private and personal

A throbbing sadness in the world erupts.

Solitary mourning has become

open, to the public.

Eyes weep body fluids that are now deemed potentially dangerous substances to others

Community painful stories sweep over throbbing swollen retinas

Tarnished toxic pains, recklessly copulate.

Everyone is touched and simultaneously fearful for their loved ones, for their own friends and families.

People hoard their own practices with their own shopping behind closed doors

Barricade strangers germs from their homes for the sake of living safely in them.

There is no longer innocent trust in immediate neighbours

for fear of contracting infection and death.

Even tears are made up of toxic emissions. And

All we can do is clean, clean and clean again.

Searching and scouring microscopic indentations

As well as maintaining our social distancing

At the same time abdicating our responsibilities for any other infections from creatures which includes even newborns

as every living inhabitant on earth is affected without exception

treated as harbingers of the new pandemic threat to health

While politicians ineffectively make plans

the dying carries on

And, we continue with constantly renewed spring cleaning attempts to

make our closeted environments new and free from the virus.

Elbow butting replaces hugs

Unclinked glasses remain in toasts to each other’s health

And in the absence of a successfully tested vaccine, individual excesses of

new mother’s milk

is hidden and frozen with her own placenta to

safeguard her child as protection from life-threatening germs from a future pandemic.