Strictly street dancing: a poem for a pandemic

They watch out for each other,
know the drill to make it flow:
grab two bins, birl them, make a pair...

Christine De Luca: Strictly street dancing

Early one morning, a poet boards a city waste collection lorry.

A dreich and dreary morning except for the bright lights of the big motor and the rhythmic steps of the binmen. The poet’s eye notes their easy movement. Muscle memory, team spirit. They know this route and routine by heart. Double-gloved and hi-visd, if usually unseen – or unnoticed – they weave and work their way along the same old streets.

Same old? Come, tread the newly exposed frontline.

Coronavirus brings powerful new poignancy to a remarkable poetry collection first brought together in 2016 by Edinburgh’s then Makar, Christine De Luca. The Edinburgh Unsung online anthology set out to celebrate “those who daily undertake some of the lesser-seen jobs in our city, jobs like waste water and sewage management, looking after the civic clocks, doing the laundry in care homes, driving the night buses.”

Other Edinburgh poets willingly accepted the challenge. But, for some reason, as Christine explains in this first Sceptical Scot poetry podcast, it was proving difficult to get a poem for the waste and cleansing department in time for the launch. So, with deadline approaching, to the evident surprise of the double-gloved, hi-visd crew, the Makar asked if she could join them on their round early one December morning.

How would this work out? They got on well. A story on the BBC Scotland website shows three smiling men Robert Gyorfi, Trevor Kelly and Kevin Manson who received a framed, signed copy of the poem inspired by their work.

There’s a mix of new Scots and
Edinburgh-through-and-through Scots:
crews with two loaders, and a driver
skilled to reverse up cul de sacs,

The binmen take their place in the long, songlike list of hidden skills, talents and essential labour – those often low paid key workers we now clap every Thursday night.  

“The resulting poem may seem light hearted,’ says Christine De Luca “but it has serious intent, to pay tribute to those who daily, and sometimes in appalling weather and traffic conditions, keep our city much cleaner and safer than it would otherwise be.”

Strictly street dancing
for Edinburgh’s Waste & Cleansing Department

Bins lurk in starlit chill.        
Fifteen tonners rev,
beams sweep tarmac.                      
Rotas are ticked,
men leap aboard,    
double gloved, high vis’d.

There’s a mix of new Scots and
Edinburgh-through-and-through Scots:
crews with two loaders, and a driver
skilled to reverse up cul de sacs,
wind past parked cars,
leave side-mirrors intact.

They watch out for each other,
know the drill to make it flow:
grab two bins, birl them, make a pair,
nudge them to the cradle, check and
trundle them back, grab two more…
it’s a Dashing White Sergeant

it’s a repertoire, with rhythm
and precision, a get up and go.
Bins dance in sequence too:           
handstands, a wobble, balance, then
down to waiting hands, while
the hopper compacts and gobbles.

Stop, start, stop, start. Keep your cool
with drivers in a hurry. A gap: a minute
of banter, snatch of song, drive on.
They know their route by heart:
each cobbled street, each judder, jolt,
each turning place, each missing bin.

And a cheery wave to the child who,
like the boy awaiting the lamp-lighter,
watches at her window:
their momentary attention
their brightness
their beaming smiles.

Christine De Luca

Featured image screenshot from Wikitongues: Christine speaking Shetland