I sense the sadness

‘Testimony of the Untested’, a daily lockdown poetry series by Robert Alan Jamieson, who is in recovery from a corona-like virus. You can read his other works here.

*

New-leaf trees can almost mask

loss that lingers, a mist among them.

 

They do not care a twig

what humans carry round within

those silly little heads –

 

news of illness, death, the ache

of separation, all irrelevant.

 

Birds fly in, and birds fly out.

The higher skies are silent.

 

Below, the humans wander,

avoiding touch as if it were

forbidden in this slow dance.

 

They smile and nod, turn their faces

to the trees that sway, regardless.

 

But I sense their sadness.

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  1. George Gunn says:

    It is beautiful, like hearing a cello all the way from Shetland. A poem about survival and scale and humility from one of Scotland’s most lyrical and hardy poets.

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