Spring did not know

The title of this poem comes from a "poetic memo" which did the rounds, in a number of different versions,  on Facebook in March.  It has been stuck inside my head for the past two months or more, and I was moved to write down the words that have come to me......

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Spring did not know

A strange thing,

Alive but not alive,

came by stealth.

In places where people lived,

lockdown.

They were there all right, hidden

behind locked doors

peeping through curtains

and discovering Facetime.

Some venturing out 

to walk their dogs

and then

scuttling in again

to watch televised updates, 

and sidling out furtively

at times agreed 

to fetch cardboard boxes

by the gate,

holding bread and milk and eggs

dropped off by neighbours.

But spring did not know.

The sun shone, and daffodils nodded

and celandines glowed on unkempt lawns.

In hedgerows, primroses

and snowdrops came and went

and beneath the bud-bursting trees, wood anemones.

Birdsong too, with a blackbird

on his birch tree, in full voice.

And high up against the cloudless sky

buzzards, kites and ravens.

In places where once people worked

and shopped and ate and drank and talked, 

there was silence

broken only by an ambulance, fast and noisy,

and two policemen, far apart,

talking in whispers,

and a plump lady jogging

and a flock of pigeons

missing their crumbs,

complaining in the market square. 

But spring did not know.

The leaves came

and a dappled woodland floor 

became a place of shade

and humming insects.

The sun shone

and then it rained

and then the sun shone again.

The bluebells came, then foxgloves,

red campion, buttercup 

and cow parsley.

A robin hatched its eggs

and the cuckoo did its mischief.

Above teetering cliffs capped by thrift

a flock of choughs somersaulted in the eddies

and their chattering

drowned out the waves.

In town

a paper bag fluttered across the street

and was impaled on a rose bush.

In number six Oak Terrace

Jane finished novel number ten.

Somewhere else, Amir saved a life.

In number fifty-nine Billings Grove

Harry played a silly game

with Nathan, who was three.

Shaun and Anwen,

on the lawn 

for the fiftieth time, 

pounded out their fitness regime.

Jack enjoyed a wild Zoom birthday

and Sally talked to her son

who was in Paris,

locked in.

David fed a giraffe 

because that was his job.

Edwin painted rainbows

and Mark and Sophie

who were twins

five years old

made twenty blue masks

for kind people to use.

Then Bobby

delivered groceries to Mabel,

who was eighty-six,

but not to Cyril,

who was dead.

Somewhere else, Amir saved a life.

A man in a suit addressed the nation

again,

and Susie stopped crawling

and walked.

In a slow miracle, 

those who survived

learned how to breathe,

and listen to the wind

and love one another,

to care for those they did not know, 

and talk

and dream

and clap

and sing.

Then it was over

perhaps.

They cheered, they hugged, 

and wept,

and danced in the streets.

And now, they said, 

life gets back to normal.

But the old normal was another world,

another time,

long gone, not missed.

But summer did not know. 

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 © Brian John, June 2020

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