Gather those remnants of your strength,
and stand longer than any other,
more than those who may expect less of you,
and bring back, again, to yourselves
the small powers that others frame as broken.
This is the call to you, the robbed,
to recover the fragments – only briefly lost.
Pull in to your own, the carers and ‘selves,
the latent energy in these long days,
you are surrounded by equals in reduction,
you are lifted by sisters and brothers,
of this frail, but ever-extending, family.
This is the call to you, the beaten,
our lives are now, surely, sweetened?
Please find in this inconvenience
a greater sense, on every level,
which is there, I tell you –
it is enough to lift each one of us,
above the rigid rules and freezing.
This is the call to you, the pained,
your dignity can be reclaimed.
I may be too loud in my ineloquent verse,
but I wish for you, too, such a place of words;
to revel in the delight of your voice –
removed from speech? We are still here to rejoice,
in any format that connects.
This is a call to you, ‘The Brave’,
I’ve never met so many people I have loved.
My day, now half-cut, by red wine’s stain,
a small triumph in filling the lighter I was given,
that Zippo used by my father’s stiffer hand,
will light the fuse to smoke and relax,
knowing that our disconnections connect.
This is a call to you, the living:
“Our disease is the one that is always giving!”
VIDEO: This Is The Call