Covid Poem

By Alison Hramiak

To my line manager, my friend

I miss
The early morning kitchen cups of tea,
Catching up on the news and gossip.
I miss
Those conversations across the desk tops,
Pretty much doing the same.
I miss
Being summoned from afar,
And taking my reading glasses – just in case.
I miss
Being texted or called in boring meetings,
Just to embarrass me and make me laugh.
I miss
Those cheeky glances across a room,
That tell me you’ve had enough.
I miss
Teaching in class with you,
And the way we run it like a double act.
I miss
You jumping out at me.
Or throwing things at me.
I miss
The way you know just when to give me a hug,
And ‘lend’ me my one tissue.
I miss
My line manager,
(zoom just isn’t the same).
But more than that,
I miss my friend.

I was introduced to poetry at an early age, I have been writing poetry for friends and family for many years, and for all reasons – http://www.poetryforlives.co.uk. I have a passion for poetry, and here is where my passion lives. My life in poetry started as a teenager, with an early publication in a magazine for Yorkshire poets. I haven’t stopped since then, and I don’t intend to. I love to write poetry, and it’s the one thing I do naturally really well. My head trains teachers but my heart writes poetry.

I wrote this a few weeks into lockdown, by which time all our teaching (I train teachers) had moved online and we were embracing the (then) strange world of ‘zoom’ sessions. I’m writing from a village in West Yorkshire, where the concept of broadband is still quite new on the leafy lane I inhabit. It makes for ‘entertaining’ zooms, and while I don’t miss the hourly commute to Sheffield where I work, I do miss the face to face contact with my colleagues and friends there. Yes, I was able to do more reading (and gardening) than before, but on balance, I prefer pre-lockdown days.

I also wrote a poem about the corona virus and the quiet it brought to us all for while. This was published on: https://festivalforpoetry.com/2020/06/18/the-corona-quiet-by-alison-hramiak/
The change in noise, (to near silence all day and night) at the start of lockdown was stark, and a reminder of how serious it all was – stark even for the semi-rural location where I live.

I write from the heart, and though I had more time, more quiet, and more head space in the summer, (once teaching was finished) this did not mean I wrote more poetry. I read more, but was not moved to write as much. Maybe we (I)? need to get out more, and embrace the world more to be inspired to write more.