THE YEAR 2020

It's come to that time again when we await the latest reviews of the year.
Hard not to think it it would be almost impossible seeing them bringing much cheer.
My guess is most people would consider it a year to willingly forget
and yet it is one that, in its own strange way, has given us a rich palette.
​​We've all, at some time, had to put up with lengthy spells spent in isolation.
For me, a writer, this has tended to help free up my imagination.
Thursday mornings were a bonus, there to go some way towards lifting the gloom.
Where would we all have been without the technological wizardry of Zoom?

Let's not dwell on the politicians who can only deal in lies and deceit.
Instead Let's remember why people felt the need to be present on the street
and John Lewis, to a new generation, would not be a department store.
Instead his name would be one of those held aloft along with so many more.

Lockdown gave me the opportunity to regress and let my hair grow long,
commit to a daily diary retelling aspects of my life in song
as I journeyed with my memory back to the sweet sounds of Laurel Canyon
with its strong aromas of cannabis, rain soaked eucalyptus and jasmine.

But, however much some might want it to be so, surely it won't be easy
to forget this strangest of years, this unusual year, this 2020.
The image which was etched on my hippocampus, one that is interracial,
that of Patrick Hutchinson, the embodiment of a modern day angel.