I was involved with Eden communities #GreatBigWalk and #Biglunch last year which set out to bring communities together. It was in coordination with the Jo Cox foundation, set up in memory of an English MP who was murdered by a far right terrorist in cold blood. The poem was written and published with the agreement of her foundation.
Kind Words From Strangers
Time tunnelled in a shock wave of the impossible.
In Birstall traffic stopped, jamming roads and sirens called.
Wailing, Wailing across a community, Wailing across generations,
Wailing in the hearts of a family, Wailing across time’s page.
Outrage tried to fertilise anger, but it was stopped,
For anger can never reflect the vision, of the mum called Jo Cox.
Parents clinging to hope, nails on the edge of hearing she’d been shot,
Grasping oily tendrils, rapidly snapped, then aftershock.
Upon that ground lay unity, a wife loved by her community,
Whose genetic empathy, plain to see, now became apparent, upon TV,
As a mum wailed for a daughter lost, a father consoling kids,
Whose loss of mum is the terrible cost they have as a certain burden.
So young, so brave, but still in the background those sirens wail.
Oh how they wail, and rightly so, for a Jo so many had come to know,
Whose lust for action, of doing stuff, sung out knowing you so well.
Not an average MP, but beauty imperfect, the allure of minor flaws,
A collection of irritations that exploded to bring people together.
Now unexpectedly a collection of memories and kind words from strangers.
Strangers who cried for the injustice of an atrocity as a family reeled,
But didn’t buckle. The wings of memory stretched out and shouted,
Here I am, I am phoenix, I am memory, I am Jo, come now and know,
That you and I have more in common as we cry, more in common,
Than that which divides, more in common deep inside. So let a sister,
Gather those tears, precious tears of loved ones, emphatic tears of strangers,
A living water of love. Let that water flow, let the grief follow, today,
For all of the tomorrows, but let it flourish. Let that water rust the hinges,
Upon the closed gates of hate. Let people see it, add to it, pause to contemplate.
Communities of building blocks, where people join together, remember Jo Cox,
Crying tears of laughter, helping strangers through disaster, holding out love,
Kindness and sticking plasters, bringing together neighbours,
And celebrating kind words from strangers.
