in times of isolation hear
lone strings vibrate feel
air on your face remember
the shape of crowds moving
in times of isolation surrender
yourself to patience release
your wild bird of freedom fly
to places too long forgotten
in times of isolation run
a hand across the surface bend
the creaking hours around you find
another dawn and open it like a door
in times of isolation heal
old wounds left untended salve
them with a touch like gauze bandage
the pangs of pity with your own hands
in times of isolation sleep
on your resolution for tomorrow dream
of the way love is in another’s heart smile
on the changing light as your sun rises
© BH, 2020
Seems like a good time to consider the meaning of isolation. The present sickness in the world, COVID-19, in its avoidance, enforces being alone in ourselves as we prevent it, escape it, wait for the crisis to pass.
Some of us will be left champing at the bit, some, embedded in claustrophobia, will climb their own four walls, ceiling to floor and back again. Some of us will struggle with the prisoners they have become and with the prison itself.
Chances are we impatient ones will be well enough, compared with the sick and the vulnerable. Time then to find some peace in whatever kind of isolation we must endure. Whatever isolation we might embrace.
It’s spring outside, the beginning of it. Things grow green again, the wild is alive and rising. All we need to do is to be lifted up with it. Then find the will to lift others less fortunate and carry them with us.
[For Poetry24 - here’s a news item to hook this on to -
The Guardian
‘Social recession’: how isolation can affect physical and mental health
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/coronavirus-isolation-social-recession-physical-mental-health]
The image is created from a self-portrait, a sunset and a photo of a bronze sculpture of Glenn Gould, a Canadian classical pianist. This work, by sculptor, Ruth Abernethy is in front of the CBC Building in Toronto. Reproduced here by permission.
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