By Hannah Mackay
Trundle and din, going about your business.
It’s closed now; snowfall muffles
that thing we used to call ordinary, everyday.
Every day now we stay inside.
On good days, cats to ourselves,
we lie by the radiator, resting,
pad about our small territories,
catch up corners of carpet with our claws,
release it from metal strips holding it down
in doorways.
On good days, dogs to ourselves,
we go outside with one person
we love best, or with our household pack.
We run the familiar path
full of excitement, chase the same ducks
as yesterday, find a new stick, a new smell
on that old tree, that gatepost,
know the rightness of today’s air.
Business closed now, and the snow falls,
and my ears, hands, bones remember
the trundle and din we used to call
ordinary, everyday.
Hannah Mackay works as a shiatsu practitioner and teacher. Her interest in embodied creativity includes dance and movement, connection and quiet, stillness and words.
I wrote this poem on the occasion of temporarily closing my shiatsu practice for the third time during the pandemic. In this third lockdown I have been doing a small writing practice each day, connecting with the book ‘Underland’ by Robert Macfarlane as support structure and inspiration. This poem came out of one of these writing sessions.
Love the repetition and the clear observation.
Aw beautiful poem it captures the feeling and world well
Just so.
Lovely poem Hannah. Thank you. Jx
Hannah, it brilliant poem about our life now.