A Gift from Francesca Beard

Dear 2020
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Dear 2020

Dear December and all months of 2020,

I hope this finds you safe in these strange times,

You’ve been a year of firsts and unexpecteds -

I’m shocked this poem wants to rhyme.

I never thought I’d wear a mask in Lidls,

Or watch a funeral unfold on zoom,

I never thought I couldn’t hug my father

Or have to measure chairs out in a room.

I never thought I’d lose myself in gardening,

And find myself in growing flowers from seed,

I never thought I’d make my own kombucha,

Or bake or knit or weave or actually read.

Still, here we are, with normal all upended,

No-one knowing what, or why, or how,

Expertise, at best and most, good guesswork,

Nothing in the future certain now.

So though you might have been expecting,

A letter of complaint that lists the ways

In which you’ve been an utter abject failure,

To represent your ‘perfect vision’ date,

I’m sending this to you with thanks, sincerely,

You’ve gifted me with good as well as ills,

I know the names and natures of more neighbours

Through WhatsApp messages and window sills,

I know now that community, connection,

Creativity, kindness, risk and fun

Exert a force that acts to warm and ground me

I need them much like gravity and sun.

Please excuse the sometimes hasty scansion,

I’ m scribbling this in time for Christmas post,

(Let’s hear it for those key essential workers

We pay the least and these days owe the most)

I wish you all the happiness of this Solstice,

I hope you have a magic end of year

One day, when all of this is over,

Let’s meet in town for coffee or a beer.

Love Francesca.

Poet and performer Francesca Beard works with All Change on our Well-Versed, Generations, Going Places, Known in Your Bones, NOMAD and Community of Fire projects.