Such a welcome surprise, that sliver
of a seemingly electric new moon
hanging shyly between the rooftops
and chimneys of the houses opposite.
It had taken up its position early and
the sky on that balmy September evening
was still a rich unblemished blue. All it
needed then to make it a perfect painting
by Chagall were two young lovers floating
beneath the radiant banana-shaped moon,
a fiddler, a cow, and perhaps a hen.
But this wasn’t Russia, or a shtetl scene.
No snow on the ground, no terrifying sound
of approaching Cossack horses, the lingering
smell of dwellings burning, the screams.
One by one the lights in neighbouring houses
were springing to life, and next door a television
too, clearly visible through the windows of a
ground floor room, a couple watching. It was
time, our watches told us, for the evening News
In these anxious Covid days we watch, we zoom,
so quickly turned from that innocent moon
to enter our own door and resume our nightly
encounter with the latest news and views.
No horses, no cossacks, no blazing homes,
yet all around us, we know, an invisible killer roams.
Jeremy Robson’s latest collection, ‘ The Heartless Traffic’, is published by Smokestack Books
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