Wonder

Time
slides like a river
largely unannounced except for
the sound of air drawn down to stone
and set free as erosion scours
the river’s bed.

A door
shuts on the world
as it turns outside our homes
as we turn into hermits by our own
firesides, whose light captures the eyes
scanning the flames for meaning,
time after time.

The world,
however changed, is only
changed for us in our bleak disease,
captive and asymptomatic waiting
in our houses for tomorrow
as it hesitates
to arrive.

Our furniture
our floors and ceilings
are textures we took as background
to our lives and our importance, that put
our smiling faces into perspective,
so we should carry on smiling,
our importance intact.

I live
in the wood and fabric
of my house, held there
by wood and battens, plaster walls,
stone upon stone piled high to a heaven
I thought I could reach with no-one’s help,
with no-one’s hands to lift me
out.

I wonder now
at the intricacy of carpets,
at the joy of electricity and how light
streams in, even when I am lost inside.
I wonder, how;
I wonder.

© BH, 2020

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Poetry24 again. A Covid-19 plea from Becky Tate in lockdown in Spain. The words was ‘Wonder’ and no-one really wanted to reflect on the eerieness and the gloom of our current situation. But then, some did. For my part, I stumbled on this article in The Guardian: Panic, grief, then wonder [here] - a reflection on how the familiar is seen differently when the world around it alters. 
Seemed like a good way to look at things…