POEM: IT TAKES A VILLAGE

A good friend and fellow lock down mum, the beautiful Jessica Voke, put on an exhibition @thepolyfalmouth to connect mothers who'd given birth during lock down by inviting them to slow stitch a blanket together.

The slow stitch, weaving us back together after prolonged isolation.

The blanket, ceremoniously put around a mother at the exhibitions finale, held by her community, together again.

I was asked to write a poem for the event and it was my great honour and is for all of us. Thank you Jessica Voke, you inspired and held all of us with your love and determination to comfort, nurture and hold the mothers of lock down as you would your own child.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

Since Covid emerged 

I've learnt emotions are a charter,

since COVID emerged, 

I've lost a mother and a father,

My grandma, two uncles and two dogs,

Goodbye.

This world is utterly absurd,

The truth is obscured,

In the desolation 

A humming is heard,

And now the unsuspected chariot arrives,

A ride through the infinite landscape inside,

No legislation could restrict the vibration,

Of fear, separation, ignorance, isolation.

Pandemonium, 

Panic,

Pan,

The earth demon pan,

Pan of a thousand names reborn,

Since covid emerged,

No mask 

can mask Pan anymore.

I am the mother of a son,

There is no where that I can run,

Pans at the door,

Hoof and claw,

Hood and paw, 

Raw.

Pans at the door,

Hoof and claw 

Hood and paw,

I'm scared to breath,

Just incase the next breath births a shooting pain,

Under attack from the infinite black,

I am the mother of a son,

There is no where that I can run,

Overwhelmed,

Overtook,

Pan herds me with its shearing hook,

With no illusion left to barter,

A bleating sheep, 

I board the charter.

The paradox might Birth a laugh,

My dependent lamb clings to the raft,

Overwhelmed by child,

Overtook, 

My son moors us with his nightly book,

And

pools  

pans boat into a nook.

Guess how much I love you

says little nut brown hare,

Beyond this voyage to the end,

Beyond the faith in the air.

Guess how much I love you 

says big nut brown hare,

Beyond myself as a voyager

and pan the destroyer,

I go shorn into the pool,

Reborn

naked

Basic 

your sleep is sacred,

my heart is calm,

you drift off and and the boat is aloft,

the engine starts

pan steers the rudder,

the sea is dark.

COVID is a wound eons of years old,

Come forth centuries of brow beaten tenderness,

Come by the law of hoof and claw,

Pan pounds the thorn out of the paw,

The tonic is bitter,

That purges the glitter,

Now the hand is fitter,

It can steer the ship. 

Come pan,

come

Stand at the helm,

At the root of the spine,

At the root of the elm,

Come winds of faith,

With you at the rudder,

Who is the other,

Carried by Grace?

Pan is a whisper,

Subtler,

Crisper,

who am I to witness the shifter?

I hold two hands, 

One gives love

the other plunders,

Who stands between is torn asunder.

I hum the mother of a son,

There is nowhere that I can run,

Come home pan, come

You are a shadow before the sun,

But I hum the mother of the sun,

There is no where that I can run,

Because I hum the mother of the sun,

And all that run,

Begun 

in 

hum