Pandemic poetry @skylewriting: Still, life

 

One thing that the pandemic has done is to help us understand how precious life is.

Death: we are losing people on a daily basis. They are vanishing, leaving, stepping off, while we are still here.

I find myself looking more at people´s faces. The life there, the amazing tiny mimicry that moves smiles and frowns and laughter lines.

How they move, how they breathe, the folds of their clothes.

Sometimes in sadness, sometimes in anger, sometimes seeing frown lines set, and still, they´re alive. So am I, for the moment. We are still sharing the stage of this time and this place, still stumbling through our lines, still wondering what our part is in all this – are we the hero in this play? Is it that person over there? Are we just a supporting actor, are we getting some really good lines this time? (I´ve forgotten my lines! I´ve forgotten my lines!!).

I wrote the poem below during a train journey I had to do. I sat there, just mesmerized by this woman in front of me. Both of us alive on this edge of life and death.

Both of us still here, still breathing, when so many are not.

Still, life

  

Your cheek a bird´s wing;

me on an essential work trip

you heading somewhere

in the seat

in front of me

your window reflection

shifts between old masters;

your small nervous fidgets

with your hair, with your furtive

compact

make you more beautiful to me

a priceless still life

finding ever more beauty

through the small movements of humanity.

We live in a pandemic

the death around us

makes that triangle

of your elbow

those folds of your red sweater

seem even more

amazing, more precious still;

the sketch changes,

you fret, bite a fingernail

rest your cheek in your

palm, close your eyes

as we travel deeper,

into history.

                   – Daniel Skyle

Daniel Skyle

@skylewriting on Instagram

https://www.facebook.com/skylewriting

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Pandemic poetry @skylewriting: NHS heroes – the Covid tattoo

 

One thing that has become very clear during the pandemic is the incredible work done by hospitals and those working in health care.

A problem with it is that much of it is hidden, seen daily on the wards and by the staff, but of course not seen in the street, therefore it can be easy to miss, easy to misunderstand, easy to minimise.

It is a vast machine helping us, ranging from doctors and nurses to clerical staff, porters, lab workers, and the ambulance crews.

Even if health care staff are trained and often used to seeing death, I still wonder how big issues with post traumatic stress we will see over the coming years once the pandemic is gone.

Those who get problems, will they still get the support they are getting now? Will they get help and understanding, five years after the pandemic?

I hope so.

The anti-maskers and conspiracy theorists are seen, often very visibly in the news or in protests. But the health care staff who take care of us if we not only catch Covid but catch it bad, they do much of their work and heroism in closed wards, under thick levels of PPE protection, short of staff and during long shifts, heroes hidden in their healing work.

I hope our sincerest and deepest thank yous keep going to them, even in the years to come when the pandemic is gone.

Covid tattoo

 

The PPE mask´s

bruising butterfly mark:

a tattoo on heroines

and heroes.

                     – Daniel Skyle

Daniel Skyle

@skylewriting on Instagram

https://www.facebook.com/skylewriting

#poetry #love #poetrylovers #poetrycommunity #skylewriting #authorsofinstagram #COVID19 #NHSheroes

Pandemic poetry @skylewriting: Infected – will it be me?

 

Will it be me?

Will it be someone I know?

A friend of mine is in her early forties, and got Covid. She has diabetes Type 1, but is strong and healthy. Even with that strength, she got clear symptoms, shaking off most of them in ten days, but it took almost five weeks until all symptoms were fully gone.

And for some, it can go scarily fast from infection to death. It really is an awful thing, this pandemic, surrounding us while we try our best to keep living life anyway.

I wrote this poem from the viewpoint of a patient that has a bad case of Covid, and who lies there, looking at these kind, tired faces behind the PPEs, who keep helping and helping and helping us all.

Infected

Surviving

will it be me

will I lie there

watching the gentle song of kindness

sung behind tired PPEs

will it be me

lying there

seeing eternal grief

smile through visors

at me

while the virus is stealing

my lungs?

Will it be me?

Will they keep singing

their quiet compassion choir

for me

even if

I leave?

 

                          – Daniel Skyle

Daniel Skyle

@skylewriting on Instagram

https://www.facebook.com/skylewriting

#poetry #love #poetrylovers #poetrycommunity #skylewriting #authorsofinstagram #COVID19 #NHSheroes

Pandemic poetry @skylewriting: the memories are getting through the gloves

 

I wrote this poem thinking about the health care staff that simply are burning out during the pandemic.

I hope there are fewer of them than I think, but looking at the pandemic and how many health care staff are forced to work very long shifts while seeing ever more death, this is an attempt to write a quiet song for those who feel this, and haven´t got enough time to heal from it yet.

They are of course also seeing all the patients they save, all the patients that walk out of there even though odds were bad when they came in. There are gold and stars in the darkness, too.

I hope they get time to heal from all this soon.

Through the gloves

 

My hands are dipped in memories

slip

they slip through my medical gloves

as I hold the hands of Covid patients

when they tremble,

clench them back as they gasp

gently hold their hand with love

as they slip

away

as they leave

memories

my hands

are getting dipped in their

memories

more and more the plastic

seems a permeable membrane

I wash my hands harder

disinfect

I just try to open my heart to them

but it´s fraying, you see

it´s beginning to feel like

fraying

tattoos

their memories

they slip

slip through my gloves

                            – Daniel Skyle

Daniel Skyle

@skylewriting on Instagram

https://www.facebook.com/skylewriting

#poetry #love #poetrylovers #poetrycommunity #skylewriting #authorsofinstagram #COVID19 #NHSheroes