Poet In Lockdown - Revisited
Poet In Lockdown - Revisited
At the start of the Covid19 pandemic in 2020 we appointed Ian McMillan as our poet in lockdown to document the weird times we were all living through. Five years on and it's a very different world we live in. We asked Ian to write two more sonnets reflecting on his feelings in 2025
Why not have a go at writing your own sonnets? (Or poetry in general) Read our blog to hear more sonnets from the orginal Poet In Lockdown series and then submit your own work to feature in the blog
Half a Decade
At the time time seemed to slow down and stop:
A train calling at an empty station
Where nobody got on. Time seemed to flop
Over into itself; trepidation
Etched on our faces we sat in a room
Distanced from each other, one settee each
Waiting to talk to the grandkids on Zoom
Wanting to break through the screen just to reach
Out and touch each other, to reassure
Those who were worried that all this would pass
That one day we’d laugh, talk about the cure
But here is the family, held behind glass.
Look: we tried our best, did as we were told
As another sunrise turned the air gold.
Covid Walls
A vivid memory: a lockdown walk
Across a field near an old wall’s long line.
Two of us murmuring, intimate talk
As the sun struck gold on the river’s shine.
We spoke about what the future could be
How a better world might come from all this
And then suddenly, from behind a tree:
A lone deer running, mix of fear and bliss
In the way it moved and we turned and saw
It crossing the field to the ancient wall
Then jumping over it. Did the wall thaw,
Or start to? Or did it begin to fall?
No. But walls, I think, are not forever;
They’re fleeting as a deer in spring weather.