#602 - the second year in pyjamas

26.viii.21

602

2.237

the second year in pyjamas

 

thus though we cannot make our sun stand still…

                                          – Marvell

 

I am much visited

in feathers, wings

in fur

appropriately distanced all

(often other side of glass)

 

I

disshevel

make fur ball of self

look bright side up

 

at least we weren’t in

(name almost any country)

 

never been prouder of staying put

we burnt the sniffles at the stake

nobody caught a cold

 

we’ll look back

say

these were the years

no one had to wash

 

we had distance!

 

(in a pandemic

few will smell your farts)

 

still

life is full of risks

 

it was the year we all slept in

never far from buttered toast

and some think

must have dreamt it

 

seasons locked down

come and go

 

make picture poem every day

drink in

(but careful, not too much)

 

years many came to speak to their fitbits

Siri, Alexa, Cortana, Bixby –

all are family now!

 

years of measuring!

 

a certain amount of stretch

music and made some too

 

look up

cloud coddle

watch out for the sun

and every other star

 

heavens were observable

(fumes less for a while)

 

and I?

ageless as ever

exercise the aches

walk around the place

 

notice to do

and shun the done

 

bake in the day

when the panels have sun

 

zoom zoom

big grizzle

 

news keeps coming

 

gets worse

but where’s that from?

 

this notional world

like the France of my schooldays

to benefit whom?

 

in such years

(and here we are)

 

forget pills, prescriptions

I take my head for a spin

 

make a booking

I become a pin cushion

(warn them about the fainting)

because – add drama – I want to live

 

mainly though

I let the garden tend me

have the bush make wild of

 

bright daubs where we find the way

 

and there are advantages

 

déjà vu

that filthy groundhog stays down

 

imagine one day a tattoo –

we didn’t go out

and no one came round

 

think of a year

any year

we’ve stopped counting

we’re going to give them names now

like ‘off & on’, ‘open/shut’

 

please note this is my personal private pandemic

no one can have lived this

and I wouldn’t impose upon you

 

another year that wasn’t

ragamuffin age

 

and some days – do you feel this way?

it was just my year

nobody else at home

 

you’d think in a second year that didn’t happen

we’d get the paths swept

get the dust out

 

iron the country flat

but it doesn’t work that way

 

it is what it is you could say

 

you do the dao of it

float

and a whole new view of productivity

now money’s something you just print  

food you might think to grow

 

for instance

I built my own bible

from the ground up

out of spare parts

(wing and a prayer)

 

I made a magic door in the forest

various other contraptions

(solar wombat, possum)

invented some games

 

and just for a joke

now I’m making  a plan

 

I know

there’ll be panic selling

back to the supermarket

when all of this is over

 

and one day

 

we will all go out

masked up as one

as if to rob the world

and the mask

will simply be just so

nobody knows whose hair