By Peg Prendeville

Winter is gone and Spring has arrived. We are all glad that, even if the weather is still winterish, at least we can look forward to better days.

Sincere sympathy to Marie and Mossy Wallace, Glenbawn, on the death of their aunt Peg Liston from Glin last week.

Isn’t it hard to imagine a life without Covid now? Children home schooling every day, nobody visiting friends or relations, masks and sanitizer everywhere. I hope we all survive long enough to know freedom again and to be grateful for it.

I hope I am not boring all you readers by giving you another poem. But I was so delighted during the week when, on phoning Jim, who has lost his speech and reading skills, I heard him utter the words Hello and Thank you that I had to write a poem on

The power of words

Those two little words meant the world to me

After nearly nine weeks of silence

No words between us since you got struck down

And have had to endure the violence

Of your voice stolen and left bereft

Of all ways to communicate

I shudder to think how it must be for you

To have to suffer such a fate.

So imagine how lovely it was for me

When I heard from you tonight

When the word Hello came quiet but clear

It almost gave me a fright.

But hope flowed in and filled my heart

And gave me such a thrill

At hearing your voice in my ear

After sixty days of still!

And to finish with a Thank you

Put the icing on the cake

It proves your voice is coming back

As mind and muscles re-awake.

So let us celebrate this day

When those words freely came

Let it be the start of a whole new life

When we can talk to each other again.