Ode to a world on its knees

   Over the past few months the world have come to see what most of us never would have imagined happening in our life time. On a daily basis we woke up quite similar news, images and stories all across the globe.Twenty twenty turned out to be a much different year than we imagined or expected.Life for many changed.The following poem was written to reflect some of my thoughts and  empathy towards those affected by this virus.

The world weeps, is on its knees.

Crumbling beneath the weight of an unseen

foe.

In daily hundreds the love ones go, alone.

And the anguished  cries  go out into the night.

The prayers said are desperate pleas that seem

to bounce off the empty streets.

I pass my neighbour on the street,

but our gaze are fleeting across the gap                                                                                                                

and even though we would like to ,

we dared not stop.

Each day I hear the numbers read

and cannot but  imagine instead

the untold  stories of the dead.

I think of  health workers the world around

toiling so hard to keep those numbers down

and each time that they hold a stranger’s hand

or be that relative not close at hand.

They talk of bodies piling high

 and I see the child without a dad,

the gran who couldn’t say goodbye,

 that doctor making one last round

the nurse who didn’t go back home.

And as I watch from day to day

our leaders and the things they say ,

I cannot help but think how sad,

how vile the ruse,

the easy lies, the subterfuge.

  All the time so little done

 to stem the loss of those loved ones.

And I cringe each time at the daily toll ,

and imagine the trauma when it all unfolds.

But Captain Moore at ninety nine

with a great big heart made many proud

 and showed us all the strength ,the courage,

and the value of the old.

For those who pray enough is said

to break the stronghold  of the dead

 but even as the close of day we hear the tally with dismay

and ask why God has turned away

and why the innocent always pay.

 Oh, how we mourn our freedom lost

not truly stopping to count the real cost,

or sheer selflessness of those who gave their lives

in a deadly and seemingly unwinnable fight.

Twenty Twenty, a year for some began as norm,

 the world around is remembered now

 as the one that cast our continents

  into a masked and sterile battleground,

 where the lives of countless lie in hope

 from this cataclysm to emerge.

Yet in an irony of fate

the world has come to recognise,

 that  celebrities and heroes

are those to whom we owe our lives.

The daily services they provide, that kept us sane and safe, alive .

And now as we look forward to the end,

we hope that tomorrow will be spent

learning how best to be our brothers’ friend.

                                                           

photo credit: Edwin Hooper- Unsplash