Seesaw
Corona n. Crown like,
Luminous halo, aureole,
Builder’s cornice, a cape,
even a much guzzled ale,
never a threat, nor a viral
save a Roman villain in Asterix.
Come December, of nineteen,
Corona’s not positive any more,
outbreaks and oriental lockdowns
shake us like never before
soon sweeps global swathes
brings the mighty to their knees.
Crises and pandemics
miseries every few decades
depression and downturn
we overcame virulence, plagues,
Unleashing our artillery
of biotech and the fisc.
Not any longer,
this time it’s an either or
caught between life and livelihood
twixt two ends of a seesaw
balanced not by weight alone
tugged by multiple variables.
-- Didier Conrad
-- Didier Conrad
In 1959 writer René Goscinny and illustrator Albert Uderzo created Asterix, a diminutive but fearless Gaulish warrior living in the time of Julius Caesar. After the death of Goscinny in 1977, Uderzo took over the writing as well. When he retired in 2011 the series was taken over by Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad. Their 3rd book, the 37th in the series, was "Astérix et la Transitalique" (published in English as "Asterix and the Chariot Race"), released worldwide in more than 20 languages in 2017 with an initial print run of 5 million copies.
ReplyDelete