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The Year the World Slowed Doon - poem to mark lockdown anniversary, by OIC Convener

Date: 23 March 2021

Time: 10:56

Council Convener Harvey Johnston has eloquently summed up the past year in a reflective piece he has written, marking today's anniversary of the first lockdown, one year on.

 

The Year the World Slowed Doon

 

Bright yellow verge and gerdeen king

Most welcome harbinger of Spring

What joy a daffodil does bring

Ye cooldna come too soon.         

The Vernal equinox is here

Your trumpet fanfare tells us clear

That we’ve survived a whole damn year

The year the world slowed doon.

 

This time last year I mind on plain

Ye’d scarce come oot tae cheer us when

That germ, hid struck. (Oh what a pain)

Hid fairly changed wur tune.

Lock doon: Lock up: Contain syndrome

All bide apace and stey at home

No more the planet’s face tae roam

The year the world slowed doon.

 

No schools, no shops, no freends tae see

Poor owld folk needan company

Then up stepped wur community

Wur Islands’ greatest boon

We’ve gained by changan doon a gear

And lucked more at what’s near and dear

Enjoyed wur Soolka roond us here

The year the world slowed doon.

 

Hail vaccine makers most sublime

Now we can shift that paradigm

Hid is a metter noo, of time

Afore wur all immune.

Hail heroes of the N.H.S.

Hail Carers caran wi’ finesse

All volunteers we richly bless

The year the world slowed doon.

 

St Magnus, Orkney’s guiding star

Ye’ve stood through warse than this by far

Seen plague and pestilence and war

Stood firm for Isles and toon.

The coloured coat you wear tonight

Of red and blue and yellow light

Says Orkney’ll see this through all right

The year the world slowed doon.

 

Harvey Johnston. March 2021.