Conjola Park
is more than a small boy’s paradise right now.
Everywhere you look
those yellow machines
lifting, pushing
scraping, scrunching.

Big trucks and cranes
diggers, dozers
backhoes and bobcats:
enough Big Boys Toys
to keep any male enthralled.

Mesmerising to watch:
metal sheets
folded like pastry
with careful precision.
These guys are
the Sara Lees of roofing.

All this feels strange
after three months of quiet.
This flurry of action,
the crashes and bangs
which echo up and down the hill
which we all call home.

So much activity, so many people.
And elsewhere, in our self isolated world
we stay apart,
maintaining the distance
when we venture out.

The quiet has retreated
to the ‘normal’ world,
where shops stand empty.
No time or place for conversation
outside the safety of home.

But here,
where our homes once stood
we see busy-ness and bustle,
patches of brown earth amid the green.
A different landscape:
Contrast in time and place.