Pandemic poetry @skylewriting: writing on my book of hugs

 

                                                                                           kate_sept2004/Getty Images

Never in recent memory have we noticed the loss of small things we take so for granted, on such a grand scale.

Suddenly, physical contact is first sliding away, like we each are set on ice floes that slowly glide apart, lapped by waves, pulling us apart.

Then it keeps yawning until it almost seems like chasms open up between us and others. We see them, but so far away… Could we even reach them, if we tried to grasp?

No contact (unless you are lucky to have it in your relationship); no touch, no touch, don´t touch. Almost as if plague doctors from the Black Death were walking around among us, whispering through their snouted masks: ”Stay away, stay away. Hic incip pestis. Here, here begins the plague.”

I wrote this poem when I was thinking about all the people I want to hug, once we can hug again.

We will be able to hug again.

And I am writing them down, those who I will hug, and how and where and when. When we will be able to hug, again.

My book of hugs

I don´t sleep anymore

I am up

all night

making a book

with all the hugs

I will give

after the pandemic.

Slowly I leave my bed

and gently put gold leaf in place

illuminating the happy faces of friends

acquaintances;

even Yara, the mail woman

Lucy, the barista

Ahmed, the falafel guy

tenderly I fill in

the glowing colours, paint

my passion on the page,

making longing shine like glorias on icons

I sit there, all through the night,

carefully making a book

of all you who I will hug

after the pandemic.

                        – Daniel Skyle

Daniel Skyle

@skylewriting on Instagram

https://www.facebook.com/skylewriting

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