Grief’s Threnody

On 4th June, The Isle of Barra came together as “one big family” to celebrate the life of  14 year-old Eilidh Macleod, the “dear, beautiful” teenager who died in the Manchester bombing terrorist attack on 22 May.
Eilidh herself was a piper with Sgoil Lionacleit Pipe Band.

Coffin on the sands of Barra
Processed across the bay
Piped to eternity
By the winds of the Hebrides
Lost to the world
That nurtured her here
In youth still full of joy
At large on that southern stage
Whereon she was slaughtered
Bombed to death by bitterness
Unleashed unbidden on humanity
By senseless gross insanity
By gullibility beyond belief
Returned now in remembrance
A life’s peroration
Grief’s threnody
On love’s lasting hold on life

 

We Mourn With MANCHESTER

William Morris/Burne-Jones …  ‘The Angel Of Sorrow’ – Stained Glass, Christchurch, Oxford

WE MOURN WITH MANCHESTER

So sad the sound
Of wailing
Searching
voices
Blooded by fate
Taut and tense
Exuding fear
Dread and anguish
In frantic response to
Vile and cowardly acts of
The deranged
Our response can only be
Love for life
For those distressed
And retribution
In whatever hereafter
For the perpetrators
Their hatred
Forever condemned

‘Another Place’

‘Autumn Leaves’ by John Everett Millais … Oils 1855-56 … Manchester Art Gallery

With my grateful thanks to John Brelstaff, painter, poet, retired art teacher, and friend, for permission to use his poem on my blog.