For The Many

As Children


After Manchester my mind baulks
can't dejunk my thoughts of fear,
lost all belief in this age,
with too many people hating.

I think of airmen whose self-belief
flung them into the conflict,
those few who childishly felt sure
they would win for the many
against such odds; and yet they did.

How, as children we kept getting
back on bikes we’d fallen from
it never occurred to us
we wouldn’t learn, couldn’t
master the machines.

In this age we’ve let
differences obscure our kin,
glass in windows smear, the weeds
cover all order, the common roots of truth.

If I straddle my bike again,
my mind falls straight
into the shock of contact,
the harsh grasp of hate,
I expect to be run over.

Yet we are still upright,
a push could get us rolling
downhill but forwards,
could push us upwards
into cleaner air.