The van diemen decameron
Ghost in the machine

Numbers hidden in plain sight

The obvious no longer seen

Out of sight - out of collective mind

The panic needs to be forgotten

The herd has moved on

Back to normal

On to the new normal
 

The pandemic is now endemic

So we are told

No longer to be feared

No worse than the flu now

Panic no longer community based

Rather now back to a more personal -

individual level

intimate pain and suffering


people are still dying

Numbers are still increasing

But facts are no longer shouted out

No longer on the daily news

Tabloid silence

Death is now whispered - reflected in-quiet data sets -

Hidden facts - in plain sight

If you look - you can find

websites online not broadsheet posters

The virus has evolved and grown tech savvy

And gone - now underground


It has developed a positive PR machine now

The panic has subsided

The new normal has arrived - we are assured

We have learned to live with death

a level of death now unreported in harsh glare

Sitting in the shadows

Waiting and watching

Numbers no longer important

Except to individuals

Individuals who see them

Increasingly on a personal level

Not large community groups

More intimate loss still, but not reported as before


The herd mentality has now hidden the facts

Influencers have won the “normality” debate

We have rushed into a new normal

But we are not sure where it has lead

the breadth of death and loss diminished in the daylight

Cliques now enacted to calm the masses

“No news must-be good news”

“Out of sight - out of mind”

We are “Opening up to the world”

We are now massing in groups again

Returning to crowded spaces

Sharing the collective breath and space

“Lockdown” and “isolation” words no longer used

now removed from the daily lexicon of group speak at least

Unpopular linguistics

Death and its reporting now relegated to a byline

A ghost lurking in the machine


Is the pandemic gone?

Have we won the war?

Or has it merely gone underground

Waging a guerrilla campaign

Developing new forms


Waiting,

Breeding, adapting,

Mutating in dark corners

The more obvious battle

Now one of misinformation

NO - not misinformation-

rather missing information

The optimism of redirection

An enemy now hides in plain sight

And appears harmless

A benign killer waiting in the shadow world
 

Waiting to return

Death is patient after all

And comes in many forms

Patient and yet relentless

The opportunist extraordinaire
 

Covid is no longer an obvious enemy

now hidden as the ghost in the machine

Silent and camouflaged

It is amongst us

And still with us


But we no longer want to see

We no longer want to talk about it

It walks alongside us still

With us

A silent killer we no longer fear

But should

That is its new form

A more deadly iteration

It is now the time of the endemic pandemic

A time of fear yet to be realised


Dr Geoff Wilmshurst spent 40 years as a professional teacher in disability education. He now spends his time travelling , writing and painting, and enjoying life with his wife Lorraine. He lives in the Blue Mountains in NSW, and finds inspiration for his work in its environment and that of similar places such as Tasmania and New Zealand. He hopes through art and poetry to connect with others, to make a positive difference in their lives, and to share the experience of what it means to be human and part of the natural world.