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Writer's pictureMorgan Fagg

Lockdown Voices Number 43 CARLOS

GROUNDED


I’ve been grounded for three weeks

but what did I do that was so wrong?

It’s not like I threw litter on the ground

Or got drunk at a beach party or Mardi Gras

My mother just caught me putting

the recycling in the waste bin, AGAIN

and now it is waste, in an Asian landfill

“Everyone does it”, I said

but she just frowned instead

Sick of putting out my fires

I think she has grown tired

Her eyes watered

and the tears touched the ground

The streets stood empty

and her tears washed the dirt from the ground

I’ve been grounded for three weeks now,

no Spring Break or flights to faraway places

the planes have all been grounded too

and we are all missing school

Even Greta Thunberg is self-isolating

what did she do, to upset our mother?

Was it the truancy that hurt her mother?


Surely there has been no other,

environmentally friendly treehugger,

Goodie Two-Shoes Thunberg, grounded too


She warned us, her generation would suffer,

have we finally taken her childhood away?


Through the sea, we have filled it with plastic,

my friend Carlos is now picking up those pieces


His holiday interrupted, he now collects the rubbish

on the empty beaches where lifeguards will arrest you*,

a one-year jail sentence for using the Hotel pool


His father once bought two ambulances

by sacrificing Christmas bonuses

but what sacrifices will we make?

Will we learn from our mum & dad?


Will we buy ambulances

and clean the plastic from the sand?


But as the rain falls hard in Spain

I see the true-in-C of our truancy


Coronavirus is the cure

right outside our doors


Our ways will have to change

or at least that is my view

from Spain, looking at the rain.


(First posted on April Fool's Day as I was thinking of starting Lockdown Voices.)

ON YOUR BIKE: The road ahead is long, try some cycling and recycling.

LIFE'S A BEACH: Vitamin D and Fanta C but does our waste just end up, in the sea?

BIN THERE, DONE THAT: Carlos takes out the trash while the Stock Markets take a crash.



*Lifeguards won't arrest you but signs have warned of one-year sentences for using the pool.

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