Hope's spring this winter

In this, the sick age. We are, this foulest day of the black stretch, counting losses in tens of thousands; putting our hands together loudly for the exploited, then silently in prayer. They are the worst of sighs, when roaming scented precincts with our own dear flesh could kill us; when we love and long from six feet or a hundred miles; when the great age of wisdom validates our foolishness; ten posts an hour but never a beautiful minute. When we work and play like the prayers we say: in our all-too-tidied squares; missing faces.

In this, the grim season. Everyone blames but there’s not enough government to charge. I read of a time when guards suspected passengers, who doubted one another, and the coachman sure of nothing but the horses. I sat across the aisle, accused, accusing, death some hours away - the worst of times just minutes; where the painters blame the planners, initiators blame the artists, and the poet knows nothing except the words.

In these never-ending moments there is nothing to do except remember. Remember the season of the unsurpassed. When words and sounds, vowels and sniggers, smirks and whispers could not be told apart. The finest times: sun dancing on wet hair and white cotton; moon singing in sepia.

Now, not doing what we trained for, we become innate again. Without guidance we are all quintessence. All instincts and rememberings; asking where, in our sickness, did the season of light go. We cannot reason, I cannot say. Every beat a secret to the nearest heart. If you hear today, in the spate, what might have been sweet music in the green lull, howl for it!

Writing by MATT CHAMBERLAIN

Artwork ‘Never a Beautiful Minute' by ROZ GADD