‘Manchester Remembers’ by Damian Robin

On the Special Meeting of the Manchester City Council (Wed. 12th of July, 2017) to reflect on the terrible events that took place at the Manchester Arena on the 22nd of May

Amendments and agendas put aside
to mark the memory of those who died;
the damaged lives of that emergency;
a lot alive but still in tragedy;
and some who’ll never shift their injury;
and loved ones locked in pained expectancy;
and those who implemented protocol;
and those who carried out the protocol;
the hard worked plan of mass fatalities;
the worked-up plan for mass of casualties;
the transport and the food and beds for nights;
the turning wheels, the closing eyes, the lights;
the logging of the details, lives and times;
one homemade bomb, more than a thousand crimes;
ordinary people and extraordinary care;
the mass of feeling, piled in St Ann’s Square,
of those hit where they did not want to be
and heaped with grief that none should ever see.

Damian Robin is a poet living in England.