No words for it

Methane release pipes are one of the reassuring aspects of a walk in Sheepcote Valley and, for the time being, the site's immunity from redevelopment.
While I love to see violets, deadnettle, bluebells, gorse and more, this sight lifts my heart. Long may it stay, while the occasional field mushrooms get kicked to pieces by dogs and walkers.
I have few words for the lockdown weeks in. Not a lot to add to news and social media reports of anxiety, aggression, peoples' inability to distance themselves. I hear from people in small towns, in the countryside about empty streets and wandering troupes of animals.
In Brighton, yesterday, it was already Bank Holiday. I had to take Giya to pick up a phone that a company was able to repair. She's a key worker, helping keep a nursery open for other key workers' children, and she needs her phone. We also had to check on Mum and water the seedlings at the allotment. So we had a drive from Saltdean to Hove along the seafront. It was busy all the way - people on bikes, walking, in groups, in the water, on the beach, on the lawns, picnicking.
Trying to think positive, Giya and I wonder if people will live differently after this. The signs, though, as the RAC has discovered, are that driving is the new cycling.
There's so much traffic the benefits of lockdown must be reducing by the minute, like the power tools cutting through birdsong.
I've dealt with these few weeks by planting, repotting seedlings, preparing the ground for planting out the squash, courgettes, beans, cavalo nero, lettuce etc. I've been growing in the greenhouse and polytunnel.
I did my poem a day during April, assiduously, but my efforts were empty. I crave silence more and more, velvety silence that only birdsong can provide - birds being the only sound that makes silence true.
I hear it when I wake up, before the cars start cutting up my road. I hear it sometimes in the middle of the night. But by lunchtime, someone will be determined to strim grass down to a centimetre, someone else will have a power-washer they're going to get value out of again today, someone will plug in a saw rather than get one out of the drawer or off a hook. The guys over the road will use the electric saw in the front so we can all hear it.
In our street, in my city of Brighton, is proof that Margaret Thatcher's "no such thing as society"  hasn't just endured, it's gained ground. With the loss of silence, the loss of words, is the loss of public discussion about how we live together, what we give, what we can expect from each other, discussion about respect, rights, how to protect our quality of life above personal convenience and profit.



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