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Guy Stephenson

Novel spaces

By ones and twos our room fills up and greetings are exchanged. We’ve found a space where we can meet and share our stories, our strengths and wisdoms. Where each trouble shared will find a listening ear and where we understand—where sympathy never cured anyone but the power of fellowship to heal us is profound.

Today’s leader mutes us with a click and our proceedings begin: first a reading and then our sharing one by one. A familiar process, dear to all and more precious still in these lock-down days when exhalations kill. Nine images, portrait and landscape, fill my screen. To see others who are here I swipe to the left; a novel way to look around me, it becomes more familiar every time we meet like this.

Each of us, unmuted, contributes our concerns of the day, our joys or worries, gratitudes. Hard men speak quietly of love, mothers talk of children in their lives again. Daughters and sons tell of parents reconciled, and selves forgiven. All list lives redeemed.

Afterwards, instead of making tea, we swap news of links to other gatherings: London, Leeds and Lanzarote; Dublin, Killarney and Tramore.

no isolation—
in virtual rooms
we share recovery

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About the Author

Guy Stephenson has been writing and publishing haibun since 2016. He has also published other forms of poetry and is interested in aspects of art such as gardens, ceramics, and cooking. He lives in Donegal, North West Ireland.