Saturday, 18 December 2021
Dreich winter days
when it barely gets light;
when I wonder if the
bill-payer in heaven
has not settled the
latest demand for light.
Days when the rain
seems relentless.
How much more moisture
can the earth absorb?
Christmas cheer of yesteryear
feels like a distant memory;
perhaps those long-ago joys
were only ever a dream.
Days when the news
is wall-to-wall gloom;
when statistics of ever-rising
numbers of Covid cases
fill us with dread and fear;
and our liberty is curtailed;
times we had thought past
are with us once more;
death, grief, anxiety and
loneliness fill our everyday.
The cold outside the window
feels harsher than the barometer
suggests; creeping unbidden into
bones it's metaphorical as it is real.
The dour mood of the mind echoes
the globe in nations rich and poor.
When will it end? There is none in
sight; only new transmutations of a
virus no one knows how to control;
another Christmas and soon
another new year with little
joy or signs of respite.
There is yet more winter ahead
in this ongoing season of plague.
© Carola Huttmann, 18 December 2021
