A poem on the pandemic

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Those years weren’t a phase, they were a black spot in our history,

They could never be forgotten, never be expunged from our memory.

An invisible, toxic army of a gazillion soldiers took over the Earth,
We were slow to respond, but we fought for all it was worth.

Our faces masked, our hands gloved, we were caged in our concrete zoo,
While doctors, nurses, and reporters painstakingly unremembered their loved ones’ rue.

With tears hidden behind safety suits, many, oh many, only watched with hands stretched out,
As pieces of their hearts were buried deep, and they could only watch throughout.

Streets were devoid of the games, the banter, and the laughs of children-
They had grown over time, in their longing for schools to reopen.

We attempted and crashed, but did we stop trying? No, we never did.
Fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, fought for each other even if the world did forbid.

Men and women lost their jobs and everything they had ever worked for-

We were all in the same boat, the boat had set sail, but it had washed ashore.

When we had to distance ourselves from one another,

When we couldn’t hold hands and pray together,

Did we stop trying? No, we never did. We attempted and crashed, but tried again.
All of our life’s stories have unique plots, though they have flipped to the same page today-

But we will emerge soon, look at another man’s face and think,
‘He was there too,’ and wonder how our stories came to interlink;

We shall watch a new sun rise in the absence of a friend, parent, or brother
And still remember we were all in this together.

Mustafa Topiwala