By Jan Tromp.
At home during our first lockdown
it’s as if the end has come
the whole world quieted by the plague
businesses closed, people sent home,
in some countries hospitals overrun
and death at the corner…
us, confined in the house
musing what’s to be done,
doves calling at sunset,
and there was evening
with its glinting star
and morning —the first day.
***
Futilely searching for the manual to all of this,
cut-off, we attempt
to connect by zoom, tik tok and whatsapp
seeking the safe centre,
the how, what and why in countless
burning digiscreens, one-world windows,
We open them to love and hate,
falsity, truth, we can’t resist them now:
chipped with the apple, scared of the doctor
and the dark laboratory churning under,
even as the antelope roam savannahs free,
we’re the planet’s freaks now
shivering…broken/hopeful in the lonely wind,
and there was evening
with shattered neon cloud
and morning —the sixth day.
Poet Bio:
Nalubaale Review Literary Magazine 