Reflections on the coronavirus with Gerry Moran

This week, some variations on a theme, the Covid-19 theme. First off – a poem by yours truly

Home Alone

In Bergamo, on the News

I see the coffins, row on row

I see the bodies on hospital beds

Listless, lifeless almost, waiting for death

I see the doctors, nurses, run off their feet

I hear my children on the phone

Ringing from around the world:

Berlin, Lisbon, Melbourne, Hanoi

All singing from the same hymn sheet:

‘We miss you, we love you.

Do not go out. Don’t dare go out.’

And I don’t. The Neighbours are great

The postman waves, meals are delivered

There’s mass on the telly.

I’m okay, I think

But it’s all so strange, so uncertain

Here on my own, in my own home.

Alone.

Some Facebook ‘gems’

Not sure what’s scarier at this point, taking my temperature or weighing myself

They told me that wearing a face mask and gloves would be okay going shopping but when I got in the supermarket – everyone was wearing clothes

If you think artists are useless try spending your quarantine without music, books, poems and movies

Does anyone know if we can take showers yet or should we just keep washing our hands?

I didn’t survive all those black-out drunken nights to be taken down by a virus called after a light beer

Morning my Facebook Friends, what day is it and what time is it, please?

Ran out of milk so had to use Baileys on my cornflakes

Just heard a doctor on TV saying that while quarantining at home we should focus on inner peace. To achieve this we should finish things we start and remain calm. So, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, half a bottle of gin, a slice of strawberry meringue and the last of the Black Magic chocolates. I have never felt so peaceful and calm

Please don’t mistake my humour about the virus as a lack of seriousness or concern. Laughing through hard times happens to be how I got through life *

On a personal note - thank you, my Facebook Friends, and WhatsApp brethren, your wit and humour, and positivity, make me smile and laugh and help shorten the long quarantine hours.

Stay safe. Stay sane. And be kind.

Finally, a poem written 151 years ago (in 1869) by Kathleen O’Meara; how eerily apt, and appropriate, it is for these quarantine times!

And People Stayed Home

And people stayed home

And read books and listened

And rested and exercised

And made art and played

And learned new ways of being

And stopped

And listened deeper

Someone meditated

Someone prayed

Someone danced

Someone met their shadow

And people began to think differently

And people healed

And in the absence of people who

Lived in ignorant ways,

Dangerous, meaningless and

Heartless,

Even the earth began to heal

And when the danger ended

And people found each other

Grieved for the dead people

And they made new choices

And dreamed of new visions

And created new ways of life

And healed the earth completely

Just as they were healed themselves