Grief rises up every six feet
floods down the street
roars out the cemetery road
pours through the graveyard gate.
Keeping together, staying apart.
Silence turns sadness to stones.
Unspent words, dead weights
that jangle in pockets.
Stay Local.
In this together.
A lifetime’s belonging
short-changed to
Protect each other.
A people untethered drown to
Stay safe.
Hold firm.
Social distancing saves lives.
………..
Tina McGrath is an Irish writer with a healthcare background. Her work explores how the human body is lived in space and across time, with a particular emphasis on meaning-making and personal identity. She has published poetry in Tendon: A Medical Humanities Creative Journal.
Tina
Thank you for this beautiful and raw reflection on your loss and that of so many people in Covid times.
Misneach mo chara..
Emer
Brilliant poem. Love this. Maurice
Lovely, very touching
Thank you Tina,
Painful, emotional, unthinkable, yet here we are.
Rosie
You don’t appreciate the preciousness of the ordinary until it is lost. In a small place the solidarity and care for each member has saved lives but made them so much poorer. Well captured Tina. My sympathies to you in your loss.