On May 18, 2021, participants from Kenya to California wrote in response to Covid-themed paintings by children, teenagers and young adults from around the world. Our fundraiser will remain open for two more days, until June 30th. All donations will be matched, pound for pound, by the Pears Foundation! Click here to donate.

In this, our last post, we have writing from Madge O’Callaghan, Aideen Walsh and Paula Gilvarry.

SHASHI DHAR IS SICK AND TIRED OF BEING SICK AND TIRED

Madge O’Callaghan, Co Clare, Ireland

Image credit: “Healthcare Heroes” by Muzzamil Mughal, Pakistan

Shashi Dhar is sick and tired of being sick and tired. Another old woman gasping her last breath. Shashi holds her hand and sings softly to her. Her family didn’t make it on time to see her. Two strong sons and a fine daughter, laid low or living in another country, Shashi guessed.

Shashi caresses the cracked dry skin of his charge, willing her to die quickly, painlessly. Another one, and another and another. How many was that now? Old women and old men outliving their usefulness. Sure who would miss them? Hadn’t they lived long enough anyway?

No flatline. No unplugging. The most he can do is offer slow release pain meds – saturating the old woman’s lungs with morphine, watching her as she slowly draws a last rattling breath and flicks open her eyes, wide and accusing.

Shashi sings softly, all the old tunes that his mother taught him at her knee. He sings songs about boats on rivers that he’s never seen; about love of people in strange and foreign places; about children and insects and cows and horses and bees and snakes. He dredges up memories of songs that he thought he had long forgotten and when he could sing no more he reaches inside himself further for yet another song. The old woman wasn’t dead yet. Her heart was strong. She fought until there was no fight left in her. Then she relented, gave a soft sigh and she was gone.

Shashi went to the next bed. He held the hand of the woman lying in the bed. He sings to her until she too slips peacefully beyond him. 

THAT WAS THE YEAR…

Aideen Walsh, Co Leitrim, Ireland

Image credit: “You Are Not Alone”, Samira Mammadova, Azerbaijan.

That was the year we unhooked 
our tentacles from the world 
and watched it stand still;  
Found the music of birdsong, laughter, tears 
and the joyful silence of togetherness.
A year stolen from the world yet spent together.
Reflecting a time we may never have again.

IT IS GREY INSIDE

Paula Gillvarry, Co Sligo, Ireland

Image credit: “Wild Imagination” by James Moonan, Ireland

It is grey inside.  I am grey. Life is grey, no school, no sport, no anything
My parents are on top of me, all the time 
Feckin Armageddon since March 20
Zombies would be better
This is zombie land by a thousand
My room is grey, I am grey, my parents used to be fun, well for parents they were fun
And they went out to work, came home with news
Now they are on compute all day and only watch Covid news
I hate bloody Covid
I want to beat it, burn it, obliterate it
But it's too clever
It's a virus
I know about viruses on computers 
And now the virus in us “humans’
Are we humans still?  Seems to me we have become the zombies… Ha ha, hysterical
I want to go out the door, kick a football around, hang around that park bench where the girls used to sit, especially when Sarah was there
Sarah... I see her colours, bright red, cobalt blue, iridescent green
She shimmers in my mind
She sometimes walks past the house with her parents, masks on taking their daily walk… good for your mental health, that really annoying voice says on the radio.
I hate the radio now
I will live in my head with Sarah,
We will fly to Africa on Pink Flamingos, feed fat racoons,
I will give her a giant sunflower and secretly long for a sweet Sarah kiss in return

We will sit on the grass in the park and she will make a daisy chain, using her finger nail to close the chain.
She will lean in towards me and place her offering over my head
As it falls over onto my neck I lean forward to kiss her
Knock, knock
My bedroom door is shaking
Sean, did you not hear me?
Dinner
It's grey again

On May 18, 2021, participants from Kenya to California wrote in response to Covid-themed paintings by children, teenagers and young adults from around the world. This week we share writing from Shane Leavy, Margaret O’Brien and Theresa Jones.

Our fundraiser will remain open till June 30th. All donations will be matched, pound for pound, by the Pears Foundation! Click here to donate.

LOOK, THE NEWSPAPER ALWAYS HAS TO GAZE

Shane Leavey, Glenar, Co Leitrim

Image credit: “Wild Imagination” by James Moonan, Ireland

Look, the newspaper always has to gaze
on darkness.

But outside
    thistle trembles in the sun
soft waters slash in sudden, showering bursts
that yield at once to rainbows,
rich and ripe,
rivulets dance diamond on the heathered hills.

Bluebells bring indigo haze
under hazel,
skylarks sing, hovering, and swallows flaunt,
flinging feathered arcs
from rafter to fern.

It’s hard to hold dismay for long,
rejoice:
in lushness,
sun on life-enveloped loam
as seed and sapling yearn towards the sun.

ECDYSIS: the act of casting off the old skin

Margaret O’Brien @margaretwriting, Co Tipperary, Ireland

Image credit: “Healthcare Heroes” by Muzzamil Mughal, Pakistan

We wear masks. Now they are visible. But before? We wore masks that were not so visible, a performance maybe of what we thought the world expected us to be.

Today our fabric masks hide the lower part of our faces, our noses, mouths, jaws. But our eyes are still eloquent, showing our joy, fear, love. I store my masks in a bag behind our front door and stick one in a pocket or my bag as I leave our house. I’ve become very accustomed to wearing them in a public space such as a supermarket but it still feels odd, awkward if I’m in a private space like someone’s home. Not that this happens often.

Vaccinations are rolling out, steadily working down the age cohorts here in Ireland. I’m relieved to have had my first one. Still we must mask up, out of care, out of courtesy, out of love. We have learned so much in the past year. Ecdysis.

THE IMAGE OF SERENITY

Theresa Jones, Clonmel, Tipperary

Image credit: “You Are Not Alone” by Samira Mammadova, Azerbaijan.

The image of serenity, just look at her, she is definitely looking down at me. COVID a time for peace, to develop peace of mind, read more, dance more, listen to more music, learn more. 

The image of the spiritual woman seemed to look directly into my soul, it seemed to say. 

“I see you.  I see what you lack.  I see what you need”.

But she also seemed to ask, “Do you know the answer to these questions?  Can you say you are at peace with yourself?”

Smug madam.  Looking down, judging me.   She seemed I must say, for someone cross-legged, many armed; totally focused, at peace.

It would be easy to imagine that she never screamed at the computer, at the TV or at the sheer frustration of needing that one little thing to complete a project, that was only sold in a shop deemed to be “non-essential”.  Except that just at this very moment, it seemed very essential to my well being, to my sense of self.

But I looked at her again, resenting her calmness, her look of utter contentment.  Resilience shone through her.  I am sure that woman never threw anything down in temper; with any of her arms.  She was perfectly happy to stay at home. 

Love more, she said. 

Who do you suggest? I said.  Well, I have read more, listened to more music and meditated to beat the band.   Dancing, I won’t admit to.  But love more, well, if you call walking the dogs many times a day and being nice (from a distance) to the neighbours qualified, then Yes, I also did that too.

Perhaps someone out there saw a together woman walking her dogs, chatting with ease and wondered at the peace radiated there.

Perhaps we all share a veneer of calm, while flapping inside, the outward image of serenity; not smugness at all.

On May 18, 2021, participants from Kenya to California wrote in response to Covid-themed paintings by children, teenagers and young adults from around the world. This week we share writing from Tom Sigafoos, Margaret Coen and Bernie Condon. You can still make a donation – our fundraiser will remain active until June 30, and you can donate directly to vaccinaid.org at any time.

HEROES WITHOUT BORDERS

Tom Sigafoos, Kinlough, Co Leitrim

Image credit: “You Are Not Alone” by Samira Mammadova, Azerbaijan

There’s an old trope in Hollywood movies: when humankind is threatened by a common enemy, we all put our differences aside and work together to save ourselves. How many stories have been contrived around that idea? For openers, there’s War of the Worlds – Orson Welles on the radio in 1938; a movie in 1953 and then a Steven Spielberg version in 2005. In the over-the-top foolishness of Independence Day in 1996, the President of the United States – Bill Pullman, in this case – flies off in a jet fighter plane and shoots down a flying saucer. If you’re a 1950’s sci-fi movie buff, you’ve probably seen The Day the Earth Stood Still, with its sinister intergalactic password KLAATU BARADA NIKTO – not to mention When Worlds Collide, This Island Earth, and The Man from Planet X. The core of the stories didn’t change – when the chips were down, humankind pulled together.

But now in 2021, in the face of a genuine worldwide threat, what’s happened? We’re all at each other’s throats. Who’s going to get the vaccine? And who’s going to get it first? Who’s going to see the idea of wearing a surgical mask as a low-impact, sensible public-health measure, and who’s going to vilify it as a sinister intrusion on personal freedom? Who’s going to look for ways to share the vaccines and PPE, and who’s going to look for ways to make a buck?

Maybe the grand union of human purpose has always been a fable. Reality has provided gritty material for writers and artists, as in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, where the man who grew rich selling war materiel, like the supplier of the Grenfell Tower cladding, is exposed as a conscienceless corner-cutter. Arrival comes close to a counter-heroic narrative, as the national armies of the world grow suspicious of alien visitors and prepare to destroy them – and each other – until the aliens help human beings learn a new way to think.

Is there something we can learn from Covid viruses – something about adaptability and endurance – that can help us re-think our heroic myth?

Tom Sigafoos, May, 2021

LOCKDOWN

Margaret Coen, Ireland

Image credit: “Wild Imagination” by James Moonan, Ireland

It’s so difficult. What do I do? I can’t go anywhere, just sit here staring out of my window. They said two weeks. What is it now, six weeks? Six months? A year? I honestly can’t remember. The days merge into one another. I had such plans, travel, art projects, good times with my nearest and dearest. But that’s all out of the window. 

God! Is it my fault? When I was a kid I wanted to know what it was like to survive a really awful situation. I used to make plans for a nuclear bunker and how to store my supplies away. Would I be able to kill and eat any animals? Would I be able to catch them in the first place? Maybe my wish has come true! It’s like being in a bunker, almost, when you’re not allowed out of your house except for shopping or a 2km walk. 

But I really shouldn’t complain. So far I haven’t had to kill anybody’s pet to keep starvation from my door. Tesco delivers. The weather wasn’t too bad over the summer and making Christmas crafts filled the darker months. 

And what will all of this do to the world? Maybe we have become a little more compassionate and certainly we must all have learnt to appreciate the work done by those most often taken for granted. How could anyone ignore the sacrifices made day after day, hour after hour by the staff in hospitals? My great hope is quite a simple one. I hope everyone who hasn’t before, remembers to wash their hands before leaving a bathroom. That could stop a lot of diseases spreading around. 

I think we must all have learnt, in the more affluent countries anyway, to do without a lot of things we thought so essential before, and realised we can live a simpler life. We can see now the importance of communication. Contact with people on the most basic level is essential for the well-being of everyone. And we must know that wherever they live on this insignificant lump of rock we call Earth, all people are our own people. If they are not in a good place, then neither are we. Someone coughing in China can, and has killed people in my town. The cliché “The Global Village” is coming home to roost. We cannot let whole generations or categories of people die, because they don’t matter to us, they don’t affect us. I say with Donne, “Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.”

THE FACE

Bernie Condon, Clonmel, Co Tipperary, Ireland

Image credit: “Healthcare Heroes” by Muzzamil Mughal

I don’t recognize the face in the mirror looking at me.
A face that looks exhausted, a face that should look younger perhaps.
Two startled eyes showing fear are covered with goggles.
I keep looking at this woman, yes, it is a woman, once upon a time a fresh faced young girl,
now, she is lined with worry and confusion.
What has she been through? What has she seen?
I notice her beautiful shaped eyebrows, her long eyelashes, can beauty be found amid obvious trauma? A tear rolls down my cheek, when I look again, a tear rolls down her cheek.
The penny drops, it is me I’m looking at, it is me.
Bathroom break over. I silently leave and go back to the Covid warzone.