Anxiety poem

We count out the things taken from us
handed back nestled in conditions
permissions and we’re so grateful,
so grateful for the simple gift
of driving to the supermarket
sitting up in the trolley like an adventure
choosing snacks for our drive back home
we’re so grateful, so lucky
to be able to drive to the supermarket together.

We walk around the block, hoping to bump into someone
never dobbing in the neighbours, we’re happy to see them
happy to stand in the street and talk to
their aunty, their mother, their entire family
the pavement becomes our meeting place
kids sharing toys, drawing worms and flowers
drawing hearts and rhinos and we’re so lucky
so grateful for the company, so lucky to have each other.

Our radius expands and we could go to the city
but our circle is set, not ready to be stretched and besides
we’re so lucky, so grateful. It’s a numbers game as always
one shot, two shots, dates and percentages
kilometres from home, hours of exercise
how many friends can you fit on a picnic rug?
how many friends do you still have and we’ll get there
we say, we’re counting on it, counting and counting
conversations edited to how are you getting on
we’ll get there. We’re lucky, we’re counting, we’re lucky.

Any other year of my life, I say, any other year and this
would be unbearable. We can’t know what it’s like
for everyone else, but we know we’re lucky, grateful
counting our lucky stars, counting our blessings
counting and counting and counting.

Learning to be gentle

I keep my judgements to myself, mostly

a cat claw stuck in the baby’s sleeve

causes more tears

than her top teeth pushing through gums

those stubborn numbers

finally in sharp descent.

Clusters form from a reckless traveller

while we focus on enjoying bath time

and every playground we can walk to.

I turn the pram around so she faces

the world head on.

I must be feeling optimistic.

Not knowing about thresholds

the step into the sunroom becomes

a literal tipping point

each morning, firm pats on a patient cat

until the patience of the cat snaps too.

The numbers

Every morning I check the numbers:

Covid cases and hours of sleep.

Try to focus on the rolling average forest

not the trees, though they blossom and bud.

It’s been a year of seasons.

I mean, of course it has, but so much so this time.

We spent money on woollen things to wrap around us

and from this end of it all I’m glad

to have hunkered down through the worst of it.

Hair growing unruly and the same two outfits.

I buy sparkly skirts in preparation

for whatever good things are surely about to happen

and on the morning after Lotus first sleeps

straight through twelve of the night’s twelve hours

I walk to the corner store for bread and eggs

feeling extraordinarily ordinary

back to some baseline normality

and the forest is not fogged,

but a dappling canopied, mossy floored space

letting wind and light breathe through.