Where are we going?

Too much going on at work and in the material I work with (human distress). Too much also going on in the world (with the climate emergency personally really foreground in my mind), so this poem I came across (Guardian poem of the month) really resonated.

It's a strange one though, as I guess many people right now may feel like they are living "nothing much days" due to lockdown. I certainly feel like I can barely recall one day from the next (they are all merging into one another) as stated in the final line. And yet, there are huge, very threatening things going on 'out there' in a myriad of ways that we can't ignore.

Here it is:


Send me a slow news day,
a quiet, subdued day,
in which nothing much happens of note,
just the passing of time,
the consumption of wine,
and a re-run of Murder, She Wrote.

Grant me a no news day,
a spare-me-your-views day,
in which nothing much happens at all –
a few hours together,
some regional weather,
a day we can barely recall.

Brian Bilston