Image: LITTLE FRENCH INTERIOR. Acrylic on Handmade Paper. 2019.

ZOOM has come into a lot of our lives lately as a way new way of connecting with a number of friends and family. Despite it providing a new challenge for the digitally challenged, it has been a lifeline for many experiencing the isolation of lockdown. Times and necessities change as we come to terms with new ways of communicating, and in the process we shed our previous inhibitions in order to do what we need to do, to preserve our identity as a community. This little poem was written last night about Zoom. G x

ZOOM.

The screen is split with many lives revealed, each telling tales of how we chose to live.

The pictures hanging on the walls,the bedroom spaces, kitchen tops,

the study when the study stops.

Those photographs displayed with pride on mantelpieces large and small,

are objects we surrounding us with to keep us safe, to make us whole,

revealing precious yesterdays in this new fashioned work and play,

preserving dear tomorrows and hopes we have for brighter days.

When interaction is a greater need and contact made much more for its denial,

those people who we long to see are digital reality.

And though we may not like them much, or hold their views in scant regard,

we know they are the ones we trust to be there when the times are hard,

So what indeed are close friend’s charms? They hold us close with open arms,

without regard for kitchen plans, or what the difference is to them

of how we sort our pots and pans.

This zoom has been a way to speak to those we hold in high regard,

 though dubious the motives be of those who run the system now,

it seems to me, that many more, would be without a friend indeed

if zoom were not reality.