Here’s a new poem written during lockdown which reflects on some of the dislocation and angst which the current (necessary) restrictions engender.
What of love?
I
It is Autumn here and Spring there. We are kept separate.
Two fish floundering in a rare tide, hemispheres apart.
The sea will not relent, and we have no wings to fly.
While I sleep briskly, you dream walk. While you sleep briskly,
I dream walk. We sleep walk through it all. And what of love?
The world is asynchronous and sick. It cannot let us meet.
II
Time-trapped flocks of silver birds, immobile, desert-roost.
All perfectly aligned. A statuesque Xi’an army
Waiting for an afterlife, which never comes.
I dream you fly south to hibernate. Brought by
Winds which never rest; which have no knowledge of
Pestilence or death. Your wings brush my sleeping face.
III
We each morph into avatars; gain beautiful
Green screened backgrounds; go viral. There is no cure.
We become pixelated. You cannot see my tears.
During beach-burnt summers of my youth we ate Zoom ice lollies
Rockets of yellows, reds and greens which melted in the sun.
Salty waves crashed onto windswept pebbled land.
IV
Touch becomes forgotten. An expensive commodity,
It can cost our whole lives. Supply is restricted.
Governments control its flow. They watch how it is used.
I remember the hairs on the back of my hand
Caressing the invisible hairs of your cheek.
Electricity still flows across twelve thousand miles.
V
In my front yard untamed bottlebrush is rampant this fall.
The honeyeaters are in love with its red-flamed gown.
They fly free; perch; throng the nectar as they wish.
Each year, in the dead heart of frozen fiery winter,
A single red rose blooms outside my window.
The wind gives me a sweet-smelling, petalled carpet.
VI
Some know seven years of Pacific isolation.
In my land, we are fretful after seven weeks.
Fear loiters in our streets, and bolts our borders.
You and I hope for less than seven years. Much less.
In your land, things reopen after seven weeks –
While death still stalks your streets, and haunts your air.
VII
Fickle uncertainties of winds and tides, of life and death,
Of the bottlebrush and rose, of freedom and the sea.
Nothing is more substantial than air, fire, water, earth.
And still you are far away, in Spring. The wait, it is –
Exhausting. We know it saves lives. But what of love?
The sea will not relent, and we have no wings to fly.
(C) Andrew Brion, 2020
Andrew Brion - Poetry 