For me, this has been a time of…#morningcoffeesessions

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living things

for me this has been a time of

gentle consistent denial

desperate powerful pushing

A

W

A

Y

of hailstorms

each icy ping of virus-fact rain

smacking tender parts of me

the side of my neck

the under of my armpit

the dimples above my bum

cold awakenings

jolt my emotions

into hyperdrive

I cry every day

sometimes twice

sometimes dry sobs

sometimes wet wails

then I read that the whales are joyous!

their waters more free of noise than

they’ve been for generations

if I could choose to be any living thing

I’d choose to be a humpback whale

massive graceful

fluorescent green with no envy

of being anything other than itself

my heart cannot accept

the curves the charts the tolls

at the speed in which they unload

the players are too unprepared

the director is illusive

quick to attack

scoffing at our meagre

attempts to vaccinate

as he hides in the shadows

at the back of the theatre

in the round clicking his light on and off

teasing us with a script

then yelling at us to go off book

and books have never been happier!

being fingered and fondled

ripped off shelves

dusted revisited

inky medicine for terrified souls

education and escape gifts

between covers

it is easier for me to pretend

that nothing is very wrong

that nothing is very changed

that for now I’m running in a

daisy-dappled field playing

hide-and-seek between

flapping flat sheets

clothespinned to a line in the sky

tied between redwoods and the

banyan in the distance has

opened a door for me to crawl

into so I can nestle into roots

of generations of living things

that know how to survive anything

gently

desperately

pulling themselves

together

Be kind to yourself.