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