WHEN ALL THIS IS OVER

When All This Is Over I’ll go to the library
browse for three hours and touch all the pages
drive through the retail park where nothing’s essential
 marvel at people who wander round freely
buy plants in profusion at the out-of-town garden centre
with queuing and chatter and cake in the cafe.

 I’ll get on the Megabus with random escapees
When All This Is Over and tour around Scotland
heading North on the A9 just for the hell of it
we’ll sing When You’re Smiling to cheer up the driver
I’ll move through the bus with boxes of Roses
hear snippets of stories of courage and grieving.

I’ll go for a haircut When All This Is Over
get highlighted spikes and a new sense of daring
then into the pub to meet friends and singers
tell tales of survival, eat chips with our fingers,
play songs until midnight, spill out on the pavement
 mock our own smallness and the two-metre rule.

I’ll sit on a park bench with a takeaway coffee
 and a couple of strangers When All This Is Over
to cry over hard times when life was impossible
stocking up toilet rolls, bingeing on chocolate
promise never again to ignore other people
and keep kitchen dancing just for the hell of it.

When All This Is Over I’ll walk up Schiehallion
and share my prosecco with folk on the summit
breathe in clear air and toast our good fortune
 savouring the moments of life re-emerging
I’ll write epic poems of wreckage and Covid
and the force of compassion sustaining the world.

By Angela Wright