I’ve been wanting to write about “COVID Normal” for a while after losing count how many times the Premier said it in a press conference, and with the recent prompt of ‘balance’ from Writing Challenges With Fleassy, it all came together.
I think I’ve also been influenced this weel by Clemetine Ford’s recent feminist analysis of 90s teen movie The Craft, and my love of a weird little stone circle that I found in a park nearby by house.
Pandemic Poem #45 / COVID Normal
How will we know?
Will we wake up in the morning and the sun is bigger, somehow
Closer to the earth?
Will we sleep sounder, deeper?
Our dreams less filled with tension, with action,
Our need to be masked heroes evaporated.
Will the dark circles under our eyes fade?
Will we step outside, listen to the birds singing and shout to the sky
‘I feel normal now!’?
Will our daily commute be replaced with a daily walk
And the street signs rearrange themselves magically into messages of hope?
Will crop circles become stone circles?
And we’ll dance,
How we’ll dance.
Will we plant herbs and make spells with nothing at stake?
Will we walk through the darkened streets with nothing to fear?
Will our lack of smiles cease to offend once the masks are packed away?
Will this normal feel better for us?
Will this normal restore the balance?
Will this normal be any less terrible than all those other normals that came before it?
How will we know?