L I F E I N
( &
C H R I S T M A S )
T I M E S
O F
C O V I D
I miss the slapstick comedy and camaraderie of daily life, the tickles and the tugs, the usual fluster and bluster of humans trafficking without the need to mask up and distance, the hustle, the bustle. Now we must light the wicks of slow-burning votive candles, making shadows dance in the waxy glow leaving childish dribbles that harden as we pray for better The rough edges of frustration and patience rubbing into blisters with the wait as we slowly buckle under the ominous weight of it all while the year folds into Christmas. We may have shovelled fluffy snow into hopeless melting men, shoved in two coal-dark eyes, a carrot nose, pebble-dashed an upturned mouth and poked in twiggy arms to greet Santa in case he might miraculously appear. There was before and there is now. A now unlike any other in recent times as timidity and terror take-on the tremendous tenacity and calm advance of an ignoble foe that literally takes away the breath of some as it relentlessly chips away at the spirit, nest-eggs, lifestyle and dreams of the rest. We are seeing dreams dashed into smithereens, such that no sovereign’s stallions or batallions could reassemble them even for a King. Is this perhaps then the Winter of our Disinfectant or just the ways ‘Of Bats and Men’ faced with ‘The Lychees of Wrath! For sure Steinbeck would have known how to tell this story of Chicanery and Woe!.
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