When this is over,
the void days and the paucity evenings,
the brittle crematoriums, the blank gravesides,
the rites of consolation restored.
When this is over,
what then?
When the closed churches open,
with the recumbent pews polished and upright once more,
what then?

Will this lead to an unstitching of
our previous, crude patterns,
the inglorious forgeries of ourselves,
our addictive displays, our daily, helpless presentations?
For this may be a rebellious span
when we dismantle the catwalks
on to which we’ve been conned;
to return to the once when and more, the kosher, the aboriginal.

This callous visitation is, a spotlight
on our ghostly accumulation
our riven emptiness
our bleating nonsense.

And if there are to be
carnival, chrysalis months of metamorphosis,
then we must become our own invasive surgeons
seeing what tissue is deficient,
what sinews are rank

Yet even in this passing now
the miracle, morse code song
of the woodpecker has been liberated,
no longer muted
by our expansion, our entitled noise.
He is our audio watercolour on which
to gaze, and to hear.
He is drumming for a mate at the zenith of Spring,
he pulsates original.

And for those of us who are spared,
envisage revelation, await incandescence
Savour the rain, relish the mundane
it will glow newly profound.
a grass verge dandelion transfused into a champagne sunflower.
…and our flags, swords and spears will sink, then rise as water lilies…