{"word_count": 141, "character_count": 1100}
 by Ingrid de Kock, Unlocked: Poems for critical times (Part One), Daverick Citizen, 30 mars 2020Almost everyone’s on leave,gone awayto the countrysidein threadbare trucksto pay respectsin rooms and hutsto watch and pray for dying onesshrunken under sheets,to vigils through the nightin closed-off streetswhere grandmothers preparesmall and smaller funeral feastsafter truncated prayerschanted by tired priestsover cardboard casketsin the deathwatch heat.Gone to taxi ranks and stationsto wait for informationfrom billboards, radios,word of mouth and trumpets in the skywhere ubiquitous hadedas,unlike Auden’s mute impervious birdsblast their high shofarsover each infected space.[caption id="attachment_23614" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] Gosiame carries newborn brother Umpile while standing outside their family house in Johannesburg after President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a National State of Disaster as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Kim Ludbrook) L[/caption]From Seasonal Fires: New and Selected poems, Umuzi, 2006 DM/ MC/ MLSuggestion de Myriam Houssay-Holzzschuch