Abandoning Hope?

The Broken Spine and it editor Alan Parry provide a weekly prompt for poets on the social media platform Blue Sky. I try to participate as much as I can but sometimes there isn’t enough time in my week, sometimes there’s not enough self-confidence in me, not enough belief that I might share something anyone would like to read. This week the prompt was #Spectacle. I had a poem that I had been playing around with for a long time, never really finished to my satisfaction. I did some editing and had another worry that I had not understood the prompt sufficiently because this poem was not about witnessing a spectacle, about being a spectator, it was about something I had done as a young woman. I went to Greenham Common on 12th December 1982 to participate in the ‘Embrace The Base’ protest.

So? The poem received some good positive attention, which was a boost to my fragile poet’s ego but the act of revisiting this poem, the event and the online responses caused me a serious period of reflection. I have titled this post as Abandoning Hope? The question mark is the heart of the matter here. The younger me who caught the CND bus to Greenham was full of hope, was sure that she could help to make the world a better place. I remember the day as cold (obviously) but energising. To be in the company of women - all ages, from diverse backgrounds but united by a powerful desire for peace. I remember the singing, the joining of our hands, the purposefulness of it.

Here’s the poem because I want you to be able to see how I have changed, how things have changed in the world that young woman in 1982 went on to live in.

12th December 1982, Greenham Common

December, that time of waiting,

when women came to Greenham Common.

We stood at the gates, linked arms,

made ourselves a chain of flesh,

sang our dissent, invited power to

see things differently.

We tied bright ribbons to the fence,

decorated it with photographs.

Some of us brought tokens of

the lives we wanted to protect:

children’s jackets, baby shoes,

terrycloth comforters; hung them

on the wire to make a rainbow.

We told each other tales of love

and celebration, knew how tired

we were of living stories written

by men without imagination,

who only found security

in the hard edges of a Kalashnikov,

or in the ticking hearts of bombs.

We stood, sang loud and strong,

on and on:

hope in the voices of women.

Fast forward to the British General Election 1997. The day after polling day was a beautiful day in Dorset. The sun shone and it was all I could do to keep myself from skipping along the pavement. Things were definitely going to get better. But, no sooner had my skipping got into its rhythm and we had the Iraq war. I went on the anti-war march in London. Ah well. There were other marches, other causes that were trying to make the world safer, kinder, more equal. Since the London stop Brexit march in 2019, legislation pertaining to public protest has changed. I feel helpless, I feel hopeless and increasingly there are days when I feel as those I and all those others who marched, signed petitions, lobbied their MPs in the cause of peace have been tied to chairs and made to watch mass murder. And the men we put in authority over us put their finger to their lips and tell us, “shush”. And I wonder where the hope is.

I wrote this poem earlier in the week. I felt hopeless.

Live-Streaming

We have decided the only thing

is to live-stream our own

deaths,

in colour

with sound.

We apologise if

our camera work is

shaky

unprofessional

lacking an independent

commentary.

We are just trying to share

our murder with you,

it is all we have left.

We need to work on hope. Before there is none left.