David Chadwick

A poem for the month - June

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Hairy man

 

Verily a plague did smite the land

So we withdrew to our homes and moved not

We ceased from normal activity

We did bake bread and clean out junk rooms

And as days became weeks, hair grew long

And whiskers appeared on the faces of the menfolk

I became, in the words of Bennett,

An hairy man

 

My hair did grow shaggy

And my whiskers did proliferate in abundance

As in my youth, my chin and upper lip were hidden

Beneath a wiry, curling profusion

But alas, these new whiskers grew silver and white

And I did gaze into the mirror

And did see before me

My grandfather

 

Now, step by step, we are emerging

Into the light, into the new normal

Remembering how to drive

How to greet, how to sit side by side

Yesterday, I went to the bathroom with scissors and razor

Said farewell to the hairy man and set to work

Today I boarded the train

A smooth man