Stressed Out OR Engaging with Covid-19

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

A reader has asked me to repeat the link to my YouTube channel where I read poems over videos shot my best friend, Graham; he is a graphic designer and we are hoping to exhibit some of my poems written during the C-19 pandemic along with appropriate graphic art-work. Fingers crossed …

Sadly, for various reasons, we have been unable to create new additions for some time:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUSdhLgPQOsng2Xz8n5m0ViQ

Another reader asks how I can “… write about a ‘common humanity’ when so many of us are as different as chalk from cheese.” Well as I have continued to put it to blog readers for a good 10 years now, our differences do not make us different, only human; nor would humanity be so divided were more people and societies only more willing to agree to differ and find (other) common grounds for making peace instead of war.

Nothing exacerbates differences of opinion than being under stress so I suspect there is many a household across the world struggling with divisions erupting left, right and centre among family members and any friends whom social distancing allows them to see. A Muslim neighbour commented just the other day to the effect that in spite of all the horror inflicted by the C-19 coronavirus “We are all in it together, a Family of Man for once instead of a bunch of stereotypes causing more pain over a far longer period of time than any virus.” I get it, don’t you?

Hopefully, once we have either defeated or at least learned to control the spread of C-19 (rather than its controlling us) many if not most of us will look back on what continues to run like something out of a horror story and remember how we were, indeed, all of us in it together, regardless of ethnicity, culture, religious or (yes) sexual persuasion. One in the eye for the bigots perhaps, enough to cause a change of heart? Yes, well, they do say hope springs eternal …

Lines from a 19^th century novel seem to me to be as appropriate now as it was then:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” 
- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

How can I possibly suggest that this could, in any way shape or form, be interpreted as ‘the best of times’? Well, we are all in it together, aren’t we? The pandemic is the worst crisis the world has had to face since World War 2; we pulled together then, too, and this time Germany is not the enemy, but pulling together with us; a common humanity that, hopefully, will continue to work together long after the Covid -19 coronavirus is a thing of our distant past.

STRESSED OUT or ENGAGING WITH COVID-19 

Another day,

rise ‘n’ shine, willpower

touching base

with an alter ego

that’s long since lost sight

of any get-up-go

Another day

of waking up to memory

playing tricks on me;

Where is whatever,

and who moved it anyway?

(Not me, surely?)

Another day

on old Forget-me-Not lane

(a wistful sigh);

logging on to images

that would mean the world

should I recall why

Another day

of shopping locally, list left

at home (of course);

chatting with folks

whom I do my best to place,

for better, for worse

Another day,

walking a few laps of the park

if only to keep fit;

social distancing

making sure of no seat in sight

for tired feet

No park keeper;

C-19 guidelines abused by egos

guaranteed

to defy regulations

likely to cause inconvenience

and hurt pride

Another day

of people being people, all things

left unequal

but for mind-body spirit’s

being equal to the task of rising

above it all

Copyright R. N. Taber 2020