2020 had a ring to it

Like a song you’d want to sing to it

True, the country faced division

But the year suggested vision

But who knew?

Who knew that, in reflection

We’d be craving for connection

Within weeks

Who knew that one day, boom

A common verb would be to zoom

And from then on it would be

The only way that we could see

Our mates

Soon we’re living in our jeans

And all our meetings are on screens

We’re even distanced in our dreams

If we sleep

Because these weeks we are confined

Means all that energy assigned

To the previous normality

Has become an unreality

It has nowhere to escape

So we lie in bed awake

Thinking

2020 had a ring to it

Who knew what we would bring to it

Who knew what models we would make

Or the sourdough we would bake

Or not

When its weeks and then it’s months

Since we’ve met a friend for lunch

And to think we will again

Has begun to feel quite strange

In these days of giving space

The very thought of an embrace

Is getting harder to recall

Should we dare to hope at all?

Hope that 2021

Won’t give the year before a run

for its money

Hope that in 2021 the sun

Will rise on a year

That won’t end in a tier

And we’ll cease to care

That we breathe the same air

As our neighbours

Hope that when this all ends

And we’re back with our friends

Talking over each other

Or being silent

Without pressing mute

Just to revel in a moment when

We will never

Take being together

For granted

Again