Surreal

Is it happening to you?

Well, it’s happening to me,

Stay with me a while

And what I mean, you will see.

Life has become a dream

Well, more like a nightmare,

It is likely to get worse

And this is what I fear.

If back in October 2019

Someone had predicted this,

I would have accused that person

Of being a societal risk.

But now it is a reality

Though not a desirable deal,

Whether dream or nightmare,

It is in fact surreal.

Surreal is not a dream

But something that is real,

Just like all we are experiencing;

This is the real deal.

Tell me the number of times

That you have pinched yourself,

Even at times wondering,

Am I in the best of health?

It is indeed surreal

The times we are living in

And we wonder incessantly

What the next day will bring.

It has not been like this

For more than a hundred years

And even on that occasion

It was not a global affair.

  

Back then it was localized

Nothing like the present,

In this, the twenty-first century

Is an unprecedented event.

Scarcely a country is untouched

Neither the little nor great

And in fact, the bigger countries

Appear in a sorrier state.

Take the US of A for example

With what they are going through,

I thought they would lead the way

But they don’t have a clue.

And the UK as well

Their numbers are in the air

And in many cases like the US

Some still don’t seem to care.

The Caribbean is doing well

Compared to the wider world,

Contact tracing is working for us

While in the US it never occurred.

Some considered it a waste of time

But by then maybe it was,

Too many were then infected

And vaccine became the buzz.

There is something strange,

I can’t put my finger on it

But I am going to leave it at surreal

And with that I will quit.

Yea, but this is really surreal

A dream, no, more like a nightmare,

And I tell you, paranoid or not,

Some people are very scared.

Surreal is so real

Not a dream or nightmare but surreal.

Stewart Russell © May 2020

Fifty-Three Years

Fifty-three years, what does that mean?

I guess you would say middle age,

But for a nation, that’s pretty young

Though getting ready for adult stage.

However, it means, we have seen a lot

A lot from which we should have learnt,

Repeating the same lessons all the time

Means a lot of time will be burnt.

Precious, valuable, can’t recall time

With a lot of wasted effort too,

Two very precious commodities, these are,

I am sure that you share my view.

Fifty-three years of progress

And that we have certainly seen

Even though still appended to Great Britain

Since her queen is still our queen.

Shacking up in recent times with T and T

A satellite, you may say

And still searching for an identity

Now trying out the USA.

When the US sneeze we get a cold

This I am sure you have heard,

Nowadays it is all kind o’ flu

And I don’t mean to be absurd.

Presently we are obsessed with Trump

And how to impeached an apple

While we too have a myriad of problems

With which we seem not to grapple.

But remember, fifty-three is growing up

We are not yet old,

For a nation that is young

So as youth we can be bold.

Be bold in taking a stand for right

Even if against the world,

Be it the UK, the USA or the UN

We need to stand on God’s Word.

They may withhold their sanctions

When we don’t join them in their wrong

But if we stand on the Almighty’s side

He will make us strong.

Strong to take a stand

When many others fall like bowling pins,

Upright and bold and resolute

In God, we are bound to win.

Fifty-three years should be an eye-opener

Regarding our success and failure

And by learning from them both,

Enhance the prospects of our future

Praise and thanks to the Almighty

For all we have achieved,

Fifty-three years is about growing up

We need to do that with speed.

For fifty-three years we are grateful

Lord, we give you praise,

The lessons learnt, may we never forget

Let this be more than a phase.

We tend to have short memories

And repeat our past mistakes,

May we rise above this error

And stay on the narrow and straight.

Stewart Russell © November 2019