'Permitted, but risky is a bus ride. I take my familiar 172.' Photo: by Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash.
What lies ahead
Poem by Anne M Jones
Mashed into the last summer sunshine
cold wind, a paper-cut barb
Hints at winter ahead.
Though told that warmth would banish this virus
it hovers still, a vulture
that threatens our fresh horizons
Corralls us back into our cups
Of joys, miseries and memories.
Was not the past six months
Our atonement,
Our spiritual spring clean?
What cupboards now to turn out?
What new depths to plumb, succumb
Or overcome?
Massaging our skins, this sunshine
Belies what is to come:
A life confined
by passwords defined.
Forgotten them?
I am out of the game of life online.
Permitted, but risky is a bus ride.
I take my familiar 172.
‘Get out of my way!’
a passenger snarls,
his face, his clothing, distorted
by pain and ugliness.
Politely I ask him not to shout at me.
He replies ‘Stupid old woman’
I am less insulted than overborne
By his misery,
He is defeated by repeated challenges
That threaten to subsume us all.
Off the bus now, I avoid
Detritus chucked by the uncaring:
It is difficult to care, yet we must
Avail each other of the love that lies within
Buried beneath our own bewilderments.
