It’s the delicate dance that we perform around each other
That brings a tear into my eye
These little acts of caring
Like love across a two-metre divide
She stops around the corner to let me pass
I walk out into the road to give him space
To breathe freely, without fear
Polluting every waking moment
The bigger acts I cannot see:
The nurses and the doctors
The carers, and those making food
For other people without food
The people working round the clock in labs
To understand, identify and map
This pathogen. And all the people
Still at work so that the rest of us can shelter
And it all makes me cry, because, unlike the
Films and series on TV, we do not riot,
Attack each other out of fear and greed
Instead, we all of us take on this burden
We queue and wipe and wear a mask
And stand apart and some of us alone.
I choose to believe, because it makes me happy,
That’s its not just blind obedience and fear
That makes us do this; no – it’s love.
It’s solidarity. It’s the only thing we can do
Since the only ‘Safe Pair Of Hands’
We can rely on is our own
She stops around the corner to let me pass
I walk out into the road to give him space
To breathe freely, knowing that
This is a delicate dance of love