A Plea:

What of terror can I usefully say?  
Is it all I can do, sit and pray?
Or, duty bound must I try to write,
Of Manchester’s most appalling night?

Did those who died have time to feel,
Ripped apart by bits of steel?
Had they the time to know much fear,
And cling to that they held most dear?

I cannot know, but I think/pray not,
Their deaths almost instant, but what
Of those poor souls who lay and bled
And turned the floor a violent red?

The injured and the maimed who live;
Those who loved and can’t forgive;
What does the future hold for them,
As they struggle to be whole again?

And how does this make any sense,
When a God of love was their defence,
And that same God that the bomber knew 
Said to kill was the righteous thing to do?

It makes sense, in truth, for man is free
To kill and maim or a lover be.
And all the scriptures can be read,
For good or ill, embrace or behead.

But in that loving God I still believe,
The one who in his arms received,
Those children from their families torn,
Who lived a miracle as they were born.

And this same God will reach out and touch
The wounded, maimed, bereft and such;
He’ll not forsake them, though it may seem so,
As they try to adapt and live with the blow

Which broke their bodies and their hearts,
Or so it seemed at the nightmare’s start.
And though slow and hard is the road they take,
His love will lighten gently each daybreak. 

And as for those who in such terror deal,
Though it be anathema they too will feel,
God’s love, I’m sure, for I know full well
A God of Love could create no Hell.

That said, and knowing it may cause pain,
And righteous anger to well up again,
If one is to believe as I believe,
We must hold to love while we grieve,

For violence does violent response beget,
And hatred and killing perpetuate the threat
Of actions, which to that tragic stadium led,
And more innocent children will then be dead.

To defend ourselves is a basic right,
And I’m not saying we should never fight,
But such defence needs be most precise
Not deal in vengeance, but the threat excise.

So let us do whatever we can
To support the continuance of man,
And stop the bombs from planes and such
And those which terrorists admire so much.

Though it be hard, try we must,
To in both God and Love have trust,
And let love prevail in all we are,
As amor vincit omnia.