Garish yellow signs warned of bumpy road ahead,
“Drive on!” we cheered while China checked off her Covid dead.
We paid little heed,
“Sure there’s no need
Isn’t that in a far off distant land?
It won’t affect us,” our heads bowed in the sand.
Corona on tour crossed the Irish Sea
For a junket, a visit, took a trip to you and me.
Our twenty twenty vision was blinkered and blind
To the global chaos to be purged on mankind.
Stand and observe an invisible virus go viral,
Watch the death count increase, the case numbers spiral.
Brace for the storm when it comes and it will,
Wash your hands, stay apart unless and until
It’s over,
Suffocate the Corona,
Squeeze it
So we can’t breathe it.
Stop it stealing our breath.
Disinfect it away, vaccinate it to death.
Isolation, build well your exclusion zone,
Stay two metres apart, better still stay at home.
Three fifty a week, laid off,
Watch your cough.
Bulk buy toilet roll, sanitise.
Conspiracy theorists conspire that it’s lies
Fake news
Trumps the scientists’ views.
Varadkar delivered our roadmap to return
That we largely ignored,
Steering off road
As we crash, scar and burn.
We’ll make our own way, “We don’t need no map!”
Unmasked we drive on to the Covid slap
On the chin
Breathe it in.
Count the stats
Do the maths.
Second waves
Turn us slaves
To viral overload.
Corona bodies in bags, bumps in the road.
…………..
I live near Bandon Co.Cork with my lovely husband and two daughters. I work as a counsellor with disadvantaged young people who I love dearly. I’m in Millbrook Writers’ Group, a special bunch of people who encourage and inspire. This poem comes from that group.