By Kevin Qweaver Jackson
Distanced life
To feel small again
with the toes
with the sheep
with the heather-combed hills
with the wanton skies
and the earth
and the passing earth
bearing the weight
of all those tomorrows.
Behind the mask
Today turns on itself
as yesterday did
the rain keeps vigil
with the slate clock’s tick-tock
and I play the ghost
slipped between.
Did you say hope?
Night takes its step down
another day
to die away
upon the skin
tomorrow it will have forgotten
it was anything else.
Sometimes yet we are rapture
sweatbodied starbodied
sprung infinite
like some mountain torrent
crackling down
everywhere and nowhere.
What matters most is hardest to say
stark night has come will we birth a better day?
Kevin Qweaver Jackson, LGBTQ+ creative, based near Nottingham, writes poetry that dares us to care. His second book Loves Burn was published by Big White Shed in January 2020. He performs widely. He blogs at www.facebook.com/kevinjacksonpoetry.
I believe poetry and the arts generally are a powerful means to connect and support one another through these difficult times.
My writing, more than ever, is a crucial space to gain perspective and let all the different emotions safely through.