Begin Again, A Poem

Steady ... steady ...

Nervously my hand begins to shake.

Holding my breath, too scared to breathe,

My concentration must not break.

With my window barely open,

A breeze sneaks through the gaps,

Dancing around the balancing cards,

My heart breaking watching them collapse.

Gazing absently towards the TV noise,

Recognition distracts my thoughts.

David Attenborough and the living planet,

Talking about frogs and toads and warts.

Our planet Earth with it’s fragility ignored,

Cut down for progress and money;

It can be saved, but we must begin now,

To bring back our land of milk and honey.

Nature is like my house of cards,

Fragile when put to the test.

Card against card, like the circle of life,

Disrupted, it falls to a mess.

So I begin again to build my house,

Learning from mistakes of the past.

Trying to build a better foundation,

One that is solid and certainly last.

Again the TV permeates my thinking,

With news of the pandemic spread;

Incomprehensible to believe so many are sick,

And so many who are dying or dead.

Documented in the history books,

Is the rise and fall of nations;

Could this disease be our undoing,

Collapsing our human relations!

I continue to build my house of cards,

Knowing inevitably it will not stay;

And hence the cycle begins again,

It seems to be nature’s way.

Article written by Dalmayne Thamm

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This article appeared in the Torts Illustrated 2.5. Begin Again (2020) Publication