Notnormal

Lightningwhite
vast rib vaults
suspended
in brilliantblue
and a rainbow frame
dazzling and doubling and
tripling
around Broadwater Farm.

Four feet tracing
pavements pathways
the brooks underground
the trains underground
with the windinyourhair
and the sunonyourskin.

Fivefoldflame flowers
dancing for joy
rolling up into fruit
while ivory butterflies
and bumblebees feed
on lavender forests.

Time to cook
food and eat
food
Time to talk
into a telephone
time to talk
talkandlisten
Timetogether.

All this is not normal.

All this is mental
detrimental
to your output
to your outfit
on all platforms
detrimental
to your attitudes
to your platitudes
diametrical
to the narrative.

This is the new
Notnormal.
This must stop
fullstop.

Otherwise
more stained statues will fall
and heads of heads will roll
and skyscrapers skygraters
surveying the Thames
will be kestrels’ apartments
their amenities reclaimed
by the reeds and the weeds
by the swans and the swifts
by the songs in the dusk
and the
silence
under the crystal crescent.

Christina Egan © 2020

Hoping for a revolution in the suspended time of the C-19 pandemic…

Under the lockdown, the air had become so clear that on May 1st, 2020, I did see a triple rainbow around the apartment blocks of Broadwater Farm.

For more thoughts from the first phase of the pandemic in London in spring 2020, see Hidden Rivers / Verborgne Flüsse.

Courgette flower / Carrot soup. Photographs: Christina Egan © 2020. — Kestrel egg at the Muséum de Toulouse. Photograph by Didier Descouens via Wikimedia. Copyright: CC BY-SA 3.0.