Meltdown #11: Social Spirit
What a rollercoaster week of see-sawing moods
Our Olympic spirit got a little battered and bruised
From happy and glorious
To lockdown nauseous
Not the way we had hoped this week would conclude
While these COVID Games could’ve been a catastrophic blunder
We watched you Olympians in awe and wonder
You fought, you persisted
Our spirits you lifted
Heroic feats, far greater than any medal number
Like the amazing journey of our Peter Bol
For his adopted country he competed for gold
Despite empty stadiums
We built home palladiums
And standing room only in the Bol household
Congratulations to the Boomers and Patty Mills
An exemplar of leadership, culture and skills
And New Zealand’s medal haul
Was their biggest of all
Olympic values, national spirit, tears and thrills
Now the COVID needle swings to my son’s generation
Happy to make AstraZeneca applications
To put their lives on track
To take their future back
Responsibly arranging their own vaccinations
This week many of us are now double dosed
Fully inoculated, we can proudly boast
We don’t need any pay
If no jab then no play
Our rite of passage when seventy percent pass the post
But even with our northern State border closed
Victoria was sitting perilously exposed
Just a day away
From bad luck or foul play
For another lockdown to be quickly imposed
And that’s what happened to our freedom so fleeting
Started the day on a tram to a morning meeting
Then as Delta re-pounced
The Premier announced
Be back home by eight, lockdown history’s repeating
Now we’re grounded again, our spirits take a dive
We had just re-emerged from lockdown number five
With mystery cases unsourced
A week’s confinement’s enforced
In and out of lockdown while this virus survives
So we’re getting vaxxed up, but no places to go
Just because delinquents have ruined our show
Local leaders and clergy
You need to be urging
That lockdowns have rules for EVERYONE to follow
U-Tube banned Sky News from co-participation
For distorting the facts about vaccination
A battle of giants
For truth and compliance
Standing up to Murdoch for his disinformation
We’re being told to brace for a long lockdown ahead
As infections across Melbourne continue to spread
And New South Wales chases
Record daily cases
Fifteen million in lockdown and over nine hundred dead
A slow rollout, fast backflips and lots of spin
Not the Olympics, but the bugger’s muddle we’re in
The public confusion
Over vaccine infusion
Let’s get through these lockdowns, let the new games begin
In this global pandemic when our lives are on hold
These Olympics meant more than past Games of old
We were entertained
Emotionally drained
A real-life lesson of unwavering resolve
You athletes competed with incredible grace
You took us away from the crisis we face
A triumph of will
Of dreams fulfilled
Thanks to the unconquerable spirit …. of our own human race
Kevin Holmes • 8th August 2021
