How are you coping
As we go through lockdown?
Perhaps you are lonely
Perhaps you are sad
Yet be consoled; this too shall pass.
Annie Carter
While we have been working on the poems for necklace of stars, the Covid virus has kept everybody shut away in their own little worlds. For some this has been a shelter and a relief, for others a prison. This time alone, or else in small family groups, has forced people to look at themselves and think about who they are. And the question of happiness has come up over and over. When I ring up participants I very often ask how are you doing? And they want to know about me — how is it today?
Questioning happiness, contentment, the striving to find peace, is traditionally the business of poets. And so some of the pieces we’ve gathered for this lullaby project are not lullabies at all, instead they address fear. And the writers look very deeply to see if they can find peace, either in themselves or in the world around them.
And, as is the way of all things, just as peace arrives, it leaves again and we see the world in conflict once more… and the words of lullabies mean more than simply finding sleep, they mean finding harmony between ourselves:
Hush-a-bye baby, hush-a-bye
Sleep sweet to my lullaby melody
Dream of your place in the Galaxy
Safe from the chains of old slavery
May your life be filled with sweet harmony
And your fantasy never lack sanity
May you never be plagued by poverty
May you reach for the stars as your destiny…
Hush-a-bye baby, hush-a-bye.
Annie Carter
Joan Beadsmore, embroidered stars for Necklace of Stars, quilt. June 2020
Today’s blog was written by Philip Davenport, arthur+martha.
A Necklace of Stars, is supported by Arts Council England, Arts Derbyshire, DCC Public Health and Derbyshire County Council Home Library Service.
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