Wednesday, May 24, 2017

after Manchester

I am so sad about the bombing in Manchester, and I send my condolences to all those affected by it.

A local poet, Helen Mort - winner of too many awards to list here - tweeted her poem Prayer yesterday in response to the Manchester bombing. 

The poem is from a collection of poems addressed to the mountaineer Alison Hargreaves and appears in Helen's book No Map Could Show Them (pub. Chatto and Windus 2016). She has kindly given her permission for me to share it with you. I should explain before you read it that Bamford and Hope are two villages in the Derbyshire Peak District.



Prayer

Give us good days.
Days unspectacular but adequate:
the weather neither calm nor wild,
your coat zipped nearly to the top,

a silver thermos cooling in your bag,
the sky at Bamford reddening, as if
embarrassed by its own strange reach
and day-old pipe-smoke clouds.

Above the Hope cement works,
crows wheel arcs of guarded flight
and when you touch the rock
your fingers hold.


© Helen Mort







Photo  © Chris Gilbert by kind permission.


2 comments:

  1. Susanna9:59 pm

    I heard this poem read on Radio 3 last week. It's beautiful. Thank you for sharing it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Susanna.
    I have not read any of Helen Mort's poems before, but I intend to do so now.

    ReplyDelete