Lest We Forget
We denied your humanity Heroes don’t cry Their flesh doesn’t crawl When they clasp the hand Of a dying man Or panic rise At the crescendo of noise From bleeping machines And sucking tubes.
Every Thursday eight on the dot Week after week We down tools and clapped Clapped ‘til our hands got sore While rainbows full of empty promises Appeared in windows Up and down streets A of show of appreciation for an NHS staff.
Twelve hours in a space suit You struggle to breathe Your children are waiting You are afraid to go home Your eyes fill with water You brush them aside Cos you are a hero And heroes don’t cry. The snowdrops bloomed early in 2021 Their pure white blossom Pushing from the dark earth Their symbol of hope Transcends into our hope That when this darkness passes (as pass it will) We will never let you Winter out alone again.
We did not winter out with you When you shivered on the picket line In the January cold Blowing ungloved hands To keep warm. Cocooned in our cars We tooted our horns And sped on our way Those with power refused to bend No crock of gold At rainbows end. Day after day you held the front line When the invisible black ball with the red sticky spikes Snuck into our lives Heroes of the end NHS The chorus rang out
May Morris 57
