NaPoWriMo Day 25: While the world is pressed on pause

Hi, I’m doing NaPoWriMo on napowrimo.net. The challenge is to write a poem a day in April.  

For Day 25, the prompt was to write about the little things in life. I started that way, but then it moved on to life in lockdown. I’m finding hope in friendships, writing and nature.

This is the prompt for the April 25 poem:

Because it’s a Saturday, I have an (optional) prompt for you that takes a little time to work through – although you can certainly take shortcuts through it, if you like! The prompt, which you can find in its entirety here and was developed by the poet and teacher Hoa Nguyen, asks you to use a long poem by James Schuyler as a guidepost for your poem. (You may remember James Schuyler from our poetry resource for Day 2.) This is a prompt that allows you to sink deeply into another poet’s work, as well as your own.

While the world is pressed on pause

Saturday morning I’m propped up in bed, hovering

Over the news, wondering why I am reading it,

This tumble-out of pain, death and suffering.

I flick to any images that will make me laugh,

Hunting them down like a marksman just because

I need them to start my day on a positive keel. 

So I read the things other friends have also read.

No one has done much in the outside world;

That world is pressed down on pause for now.

It has stopped as a clock stops when out of

Time. Will time begin again? Yes? But when?

We just don’t know. I hear a black crow hawking

And visualise him flying free over all our gardens

In a way we cannot, joining myriad shy wildlife

Coming out to explore the places us humans used

To go. But I like that: it’s their heritage. We are

Just the hunter-gatherers of the planet who went

Too far in their gathering, leaving a very small space

For other creatures to exist, so they’re taking back

What’s theirs. What about us? Well, we still have our

TVs, our phones, our music, our laptops, our gadgets,

All the things we created beyond the natural world.

These are the things I’m appreciating more in lockdown:

Leaves sunlit yellow beneath, bark’s brown rough, the smell

Of green, flick of a tail feather, whimsy of birds singing,

The watery beauty of a grey-blue lake in a perfect frame,

Baby shoots poking up, branches forming hammocks,

Leaves taking a dip. This is where I feel reconnected.

On my walks I pass houses in slumber, no noise rolls

Out. I can walk an entire street and not see anyone,

But the park is still busy. Sitting groups choose to ignore

The warnings. Joggers jigger past too close for comfort,

Coming up your rear like a puffing juggernaut,

Forcing you into the road to dodge a belting car.

Some people still walk the pavement two or three abreast

And to social distance you’re in that road again.

Make space for someone and you’ll rarely get a thank you.

Then there are the cyclists who still cut you up as they

Hurtle by. Well, thank you, sir – and also to the guy clad

In a woolly balaclava, talking loudly on his phone,

Coming far too close. You could hug him in days gone by.

There’s even some traffic jams. Are people still visiting?

So what’s the thing? Do people just not care or is care

Related to age? It’s the over-40s who offer me space,

Cross the road, walk around cars in this distancing dance.

The under-35s are still coming too near, smiling as they go.

Are they misinformed that this is a virus only for the old?

Even the swans on the lake get it, swimming along spaced

Apart – doing social distancing before it became the thing.

Same with the honking mallards, the little squeaky coots

And anyone on the wing. They give each other room to move.

What’s wrong with humans that we don’t know how to do this?

Are we so used to this crowded London that we don’t need

To breathe? It’s now so overpopulated that we’re just used to

The big squeeze: travelling the Tube stuck up a stranger’s

Ass, unable to breathe; you’ll never get a seat unless it’s

Turning midnight. No one can afford to rent a home alone,

I could last do that in 2008. We’re forced to share our intimate

Lives with total strangers, four or six or more chucked in,

Where landlords write rules like we’re teenagers again: who can

Stay over, how many times and how much extra that will be.

Some people even share a room, taking turns on the bed linen.

Here, whole families must exist within the walls of one room.

Is London suffocating? Are its services stretched to breaking?

This virus has thrown a spotlight on how cramped we really are.

The swans have got it right and we are getting it sorely wrong.

The way we live is not quite right; we’ve lost our room to breathe.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 25, 2020