In the February Edition, we bring you the second of Kerry Darbishire’s wonderful, evocative poems. How many of us have found comfort in the small glories of the countryside during lockdown? This love of our landscape, so deeply rooted, is brilliantly brought to life in Kerry’s poem. More from Kerry next month!

When All This Is Over

I’ll tell my late mother about the ghost
who swept the World, haunted streets
and houses, raced through hospitals
running out of beds.
How we tried to escape, made food last.
How guns and bombs were invisible, exploded
in kisses and hugs echoing wartime fathers
and brothers on the frontline
where nurses and doctors are now
risking their lives to save ours. I won’t tell her
I couldn’t hug my daughters, my grandchildren
for months, or how many died.
When this is all over
I’ll remember how on the heels of fear
and loss came kindness, the sharing
of evening skies, ducks on nests,
birdsong, rivers, scent of flowers,
the love of strangers
who were no longer strangers.