I posted this in January 2020..it seems as if a two lifetimes away..back then..when we were hearing the news about Corona Virus ..cruise ships .. deadly disease..death .. now we are in July and we are still in limbo ??
I read a beautiful and tender poem by Michael Rosen on my Facebook feed the other day. He wrote..
‘This is the poem I read last night at the vigil against the anti-semitic graffiti-daubing in Hampstead.’ Micheal Michael Rosen
‘I wept. …. and here are my thoughts & words as prose? Poetry?
‘ In a response to a rise in actions of bigoted hatred & cruelty.
‘I weep for the loss of common decency and clear vision.
I weep for the children, lost and without family or homes,
fleeing war, danger and death-
tossed about in small boats – on dangerous seas.
Children trafficked around the world, abused and used.
Children locked up in cages in rich countries in the West.
Walls and prisons built by mad, bad men..
Men with no sense of History, no sense of right and wrong.
I weep for the people in the burning fires.
I weep for those who have warned us over and over –
for many, many years.
Wake up! We are killing our world with our greed.
I weep for the casual cruelty, misogyny, bigotry, racism ..
and the lies handed out by those in power.
In print and speech.
I weep for the casual acceptance by the many, of these crimes.
Crimes too many to mention.
I weep for the convenient lack of memory.
The forgetting by the many.
Voting for those who care not one jot.
Voting for those who are the entitled ones, those who crave power.
A given right.
The creeping evil of the extreme right wing.
‘When will we ever learn?’
I weep for those living on the Streets.
The homeless.
There, by a whisker, go most of us.
I weep for those living in the midst of Wars.
Not knowing if they will live another day.
I weep.
I weep for those in pain, not able to find succour within the failing health service, the Jewel in our Crown… our NHS.
Run down and out over the decades.
Our leaders wanting it gone.
Money?
Money in War, money in Oil, money in Land,
Money in Medicines.
Money.
Money in human misery.
I weep for those fighting for a free world.
Fighting for a living wage for their work.
A fair wage for labour.
What is not a living wage? A slowly starving wage?
Our beautiful Earth is dying.
Burning Australia is a red hot warning.
Take heed!
Flooding in Jakarta – death by hypothermia, drowning and landslides.
California and Tasmania. Valencia.
Japan and Chille.
Flood and Famine. Earthquake and Fire.
I weep.
Global unrest – people are uneasy.
I weep.
Our oceans are choking with Plastic,
Waste is overflowing our lands.
No one is listening, as people burn, drown, choke and die.
I weep.’
© January 2020. UK.