'Twas The Night
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‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house
Everyone was online, using a touch screen or mouse
The stockings were dirty and flung on the stairs
Laundry had been halted, because really, who cares?
The children pretended to do schoolwork from bed
While visions of having a life, danced in their head
Mom was exhausted and dad cursed the wifi
One more minute together and someone might die
While sleeping all hours and waking only to feast
The whole goddamn world starting smelling of yeast!
Banana bread, track pants, and nights of Schitt’s Creek
The clatter and noise from this new virus was bleak
Trapped in our houses, apartments, and parents’ places
The world watched breathless as each day grew in cases
Hope left the building and Sad locked the doors
The smell of despair floated up through the floors
The virus, it spread, across borders and classes
Because no one would listen and just sit on their asses
The moon kept on shining, over green grass and snow
A light in the darkness that cast a soft glow
Then what did my weary eyes see, but a man!
Who dropped off a sweet package, then left in a van
With stripes and white doors and slush on his wheels
He called me by name and it gave me the feels
Oh magical driver, who comes from far and away
I ask you, “Your delivery job, how much does it pay?”
I watched him take off under the light of my telly
My sadness, it shook me, like a bowl full of jelly
Each country, each city and every backwater town
Looked to find peace in the midst of lockdown
Families and colleagues chat all day by zoom
While naked toddlers and spouses slip into the room
Bookshelves, flowers, and fine art hang for each call
Rude posters, wicker lamps, and other crap, sit in the hall
Toilet paper, handshakes, and hugging grandma a dream
Our heartbreak and loneliness played out in a meme
Monday, Tuesday, Whatever day, who gives a shit
Unemployment, disengagement, the economy unfit
With nothing to do but do nothing inside
People made podcasts and went shopping curbside
Anti-maskers still gather and share their venomous drool
In the end, all they do is keep children from school
With binge-watching sores on both of my cheeks
Hours blend into days and days into weeks
I surrender my brain for a spell on Tik Tok
And wonder if tomorrow I might go for a walk?
With me in my yoga pants and all of us in masks
I had just stepped out the door, to do what you might ask?
When from the corner of my eye, in the plain light of day
Stood a group of frontline workers, out earning their pay
For those that can’t breathe or need to be fed
There are angels among us, who heal in our stead
Their heroics oft hidden, by walls and workplaces
PPE and exhaustion distorting their faces
When themed dinners got boring and game nights obscene
Doctors and geniuses pursued a vaccine
All of the planning, and all of the work
It’s to keep us all safe, including the jerks
So I picked up the stockings and sat down on a stair
Thoughts of my family turned into a prayer
Then I heard it, so soft, but clear as a bell
Humanity whispering “2020, go to hell”!
Hope knocked on the window, and Reason opened the latch
Love poured in from the vents, as a new day was hatched
The orange-faced buffoon in the south got his due
Now political landscapes smell much less like poo
We can do this, we got this, one day at a time
Taking care of ourselves is no longer a crime
A new way of living, more mindful and slow
Quiet nights, less consumerism, and pans full of dough
I’ll remember these times for the changes they brought
Not for the battles we lost, but for the way that we fought
So I in my jammies, all zoomed out and trite
Dragged my laundry upstairs and sat down to write.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
By Carol Sloan
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