photo: Robin Pailler
As we enter day……..yeah we’ve lost count too.
It’s important not to start slacking.
It’s easy to suddenly assume after a month that things have calmed down.
They haven’t.
And if they have it’s not enough, not yet anyway.
It appears some people are starting to assume they’re the exception. That they have some divine right to break the rules. That they’ve been good for 4 weeks so one little exception won’t hurt.
WRONG.
Don’t be dumb and don’t be a fool. This is far greater than your desire for a moment of normality. We all want normality. But if everyone starts to flout the rules, then the longer this thing will drag.
We know this. You know this. So have a word with your mate that appears to have forgotten.
And perhaps read them this poem from our beloved print magazine proof reader, Laura Lamb.
STAY HOME
People died, while we stayed inside,
And everything felt like a dream,
The kind you have where it all starts to go wrong,
But all you can do is scream.
Glued to the spot, we watched a lot,
Seeing everything play out on screens
Graphs showed statistics instead of their faces,
We all begged ‘tell us please, what this means?’
Too slow off the mark, it caught like a spark,
While those with the power to stop it
Slept on it, for just one more day,
Just one more day…
What’s just one more, eh?
We didn’t learn from others ‘til we started losing our brothers,
Our sisters, our fathers, our friends,
Our nurses and doctors who toiled hard to stop us,
From reaching the point where life ends.
‘Help us flatten the curve’— they’ve got some nerve,
‘Dear citizens,
We really must advise you stay safe, and please love from afar.’
‘Please stay home…but also go to your job in a cafe, an office, a bar.’
Holding support at arm’s reach,
To keep making sure educators turn up and teach,
While ministers go out,
To shake hands and flout,
Is a photo op worth risking it all for?
Politicians moved like snails and with all that entails,
We couldn’t halt it as it spread through the cracks,
But it’s our duty to join together, united,
To have a chance of slowing it now, in its tracks.
We’re only one person ourselves,
But together we’re all raiding those shelves,
Afraid to miss out on what’s ‘ours’.
But please think of others,
They’re all someone’s fathers and mothers,
They might need that last tin more than you.
Be kind for today,
And in some small but HUGE way,
You’ll be helping us all make it through.
And please, tomorrow and today,
Just promise you’ll stay—
Inside.
There are far worse things to do,
Than save countless lives,
Please don’t just think it won’t happen to you.
– Laura Lamb
You can discover more of Laura’s work here and join her #litlamb2020 Reading Challenge here.
