Dear Yuri,
A poem for you.
New habit – slicing chunks off finger ends – sharp knives to blame
Am I telling myself something, am I snitching on me?
I can reduce the bloatware on my digital devices
So they run better. But I can’t incentivise me to run.
Oh, how I miss the exertions of the squash court, win or lose.
And the beer or two in the pub after-match, glowing, virtuous.
What it was to be fit then.
Will I ever get back to that snatchweight, superfit state?
Will I ever walk in an urban sunlight unminding of my 2m. gap?
Watching the music events, carefully curated over 20 years plus,
Be struck off the calendar, too populous;
Frustration, yet modified with a battle field surround,
Not ultimately, we hope, driven underground.
What will the unguarded roads to freedom look like?
Will we knock elbows or hold hands,
Walk in extended cwtches across the sands
Or dodge around in the shadows, at half height?
The normal, no longer normal, we’re transitional
To a now normal, whatever, whenever .
A place where, we hope, food will not be requisitioned
And not for the few, nor even the many, but for everyone.
In every community, in every place.
No looking back to create the future again?
The striving of many to make a transformation,
An opportunity to convert to full points from the game,
To make fairer, more equal, for every nation.
A dream, aspiring, soaring to resolve
The great chasms of the haves and have-nots.