These days
Ryan Tubridy sits in an empty TV studio willing us on
As another Irish star sings a torch song for a weary nation
These days
We watch Tony Holohan relay statistics and numbers, urge caution and tact, and tell us to finish the job we started
These days
We keep 2 meters apart and queue for supermarkets
Waiting in line, uneasy, a flurry of shoppers in surgical mask’s go past
Gloves and disinfectant, sanitize,
Social distancing and quarantine, isolation nation
These days
We watch Normal People, as we yearn to be normal, we watch two lovers fall in love, we yearn for that touch in our own lives, we live vicariously through Connell and Marianne, living for the great love story of our lives to be written
These days
We wait to be reunited, to hug, to hold and embrace, with tears down our face,
These days
Our best is still to come
Even when we expect the worst
And the devout will plead in the Our Lady’s month of May for her to send her angels
For they are already here, in the nurses and doctors, in the smiles of strangers, in the wave from a window of a cocooning neighbour, in the love of family we are apart from, in the hope that spills from the kids kicking ball on the street, in the friends that you yearn to sit in packed bars with,
These days
There are angels amongst us all to reach out to
These days
Our best days are still to come, the other side of the tunnel awaits,
These days, are different, they are extraordinary, they are days we won’t forget,
It will pass, these days, it will pass
………..