Collectively Counting (feat. Gareth Quinn Redmond & Villagers)

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Stephen James Smith

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Counting numbers is a functional kind of meditation
A distraction in this state of isolation
Let's make a decision to count to ten together
And find a way to weather this hibernation
One
How many days has it been?
Have you found a new routine?
Have you lost opportunities? New possibilities?
New faith in our authorities or still the same old anxieties?
How heartened are you by the charity found in our communities?
Two
How many are trying to catch our collective breath?
Bereft of touch on House Party drinking too much
How many are drinking alone? Would feel safer alone?
How many are on the latest death toll?
How many comparative charts do we need to console us?
Three
How many expect an impending baby boom?
Something to look forward to amongst the gloom
How many Zoom downloads? Jobs furloughed?
How many had to look up the meaning of that word?
Four
How many businesses with their backs against the wall?
Yet how many received that welcome unexpected phone call?
A break in the rent, a preorder, we're in this together, we're all accountable
How many are reevaluating what's reasonable?
Five
How many have discovered creativity?
Learned the value of art and opened up to their own sensitivity
Baked bread to find some normality
Yet how many are still privately privileged in this captivity?
How much increased capacity on Daft.ie due to the decline of Airbnb?
How many epiphanies?
Six
How many unflinching journalists
Will be the catalyst to cut through the populist rhetoric?
How many idealists, realists
Wrap themselves in the flag at a time of distress?
How many care workers
Or those in nursing home care will be redressed?
Seven
How many clap for the front line while sharpening knives?
How many comply to save lives?
How many hospital tiers?
Sláinte to your health but slán to your wealth
How many facing fears?
How much politicking is still done with stealth?
How many hands washed? Scars are being masked?
Sanitizer sought? Which disaster capital bought
Eight
How many attempted suicides?
Heavy hearts praying to god
A light heart lives longest, maireann croí éadrom i bhfad
How many cherished yet died for this old sod?
How many get by with a wink and a nod?
Nine
How many aftermaths? New abnormals?
Fish in Venetian canals?
How much collateral damage is within the rational?
How many great mornings and mourning greatly?
How many memorials?
How many air miles and carbon footprints saved
Which implies rescue
They say this is tough and aren't you?
Ten
How many leaving certs lost?
How much will the college course cost?
How many sporting occasions
Festival gatherings and built up emotions need to be unleashed?
How many empty streets, full coffins, open calls, closed businesses
Quick fixes, slow downs, stillness in this to what we bore witness
How much hope, resilience, reconnection, comfort and thanks?
How many? How much? How hard to quantify?
How many collectively counting numbers that are people's names
Which gives meaning to our lives
How many found reason to notice the seasonal change
And the weeping cherry blossom trees blooming?
How many were humbled by their beauty?
As collectively we wait for their petals to scatter
And fall all across Ireland and gather on our streets and lonely lanes
A sort of slow washing again of our pains
On the living and the dead
How many will find healing when all has been said?
One thing the distance has exposed
Our hearts need to be close, not closed

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