You Cannot Stop the Spring
By: Tré Ventour
Tags: Poetry, Coronavirus, Seasons, Politics, Spoken Word

Photo by Anton Darius on Unsplash

the novel Coronavirus winks

and when I’m asked where winter went

I say I’m not giving up daffodils for Lent

because the seasons are everlasting

no matter what disease

you cannot stop Muslims fasting

at Ramadan nor me eating Christmas cheese

and you cannot stop the spring

ejected, emitted, spouted from the earth

as disease hits us in our sleep,

from Bermago, to Pembrokeshire and Perth

whilst the virus takes lives, it cannot stop time

children levelling up from eight to nine

fun, laughter, memories and I’m tireds

songs of innocence; Bolognese

on the table cloth, those cheeky little liars

their clothes, accumulating grass stains

and then on April’s first day it rains

because Coronavirus cannot stop the spring

Photo by Lucy on Unsplash

schools now online with deficits

of no running in the hall and tuck that shirt in

a reprieve to mental exhaustion and tests

teens grumbling less about GCSEs and exam stress

and when April gifts us with sun and rain

I wouldn’t think school online could make me so entertained

Photo by Allie Smith on Unsplash

La Rona has shown how much we rely on artists,

musicians, poets, filmmakers and the Netflix craze

that will send us into autopilot for days and days

and writers that pen books making me question

the patterns in COVID, in its pedagogies of oppression

until I notice micro-feelings in people, that young sigh

in front of school work and teenage eyes

that tell me they’ve had enough of anxiety and Bitesize

but you cannot stop the spring

and as I hear my younger brother sing

it stops my walls closing in

but the other kids where

you have to rescue self-esteem and confidence

from COVID-19 and overzealous parents

who are themselves suffering with poor mental ills

I remember the songs of Mariah alive in the hills

and with Coronavirus, time isn’t capped

not travelling with The Doctor and Yaz through a time trap

I’m an introvert but miss physical community

as our government practices this barbaric “herd immunity”

Photo by Sergey Shmidt on Unsplash

and despite locked in self-isolation

we can still hold our leaders to account

on their use of genocide, a method in colonisation

whilst anti-lockdown protests rages on in the US

the people who hate being locked in this tin can

plod on because they were taught best

so we all might live to see another day, another sunset

and Corona cannot stop the spring

but I’m tired of seeing all this suffering

NHS nurses going to foodbanks

men and women infected in their jail cells

as race and class disparities

impact people in tower blocks like Grenfell

we cannot stop the spring

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

doesn’t Tory stage-managed propaganda

whilst institutional racism runs riot

make you sweat the cold sweat with anger

the fact racism is inborn to our immigration laws

and how even in Coronavirus, the poor stay poor

but you cannot stop the spring

despite hay fever’s “funny tinge”

cus time stops for no virus

but we are united on the streets

under layers of indifference

to listen for everyone’s heartbeat

and I hope this teaches us

to be kinder, to be patient

that it’s okay to not be okay

so that God-willing we will

emerge out this Coronavirus thing

with a respect for winter,

summer, autumn and spring.