Olga Dermott-Bond

GRENFELL

We are throwing our children

out of windows.

Knotted bedsheets are falling

short

and we are

wrapped in choking blankets

high in this tower—

before this moment

muffled important men

ticked each blind box

sat on their cold hands

covered their ears

kept their distance

reclined in chairs the colour

of expensive coffee

climbed inside airy committees

insulated themselves in

someone else’s bureaucracy

flimsy as the lids on their drinks

that they abandoned

after the meetings

on budget cuts

leaving us groping

in the darkness of these thin-

lipped walls

and now the stairs are

crumbling coals

and we are faltering

on the edge

of these burning cliffs

that we wanted to call home.

We are throwing our children

out of windows

feeling for the last time

those hot desperate hands

that first cradled our little fingers

as their own

starry universe.

We are pulling them

from our sobbing

necks and reaching as far out

from the molten frames

as we can

our arms stretched taut and flat as a fledging’s neck

trembling with our most precious selves

who are falling

so suddenly

as we are letting them go

into the darkness

ripping our histories

in two.

We are fighting every instinct

and crying to strangers to

catch them

catch them

catch them

We are praying

that someone

will one day love them

as we are loving them.

We are throwing our children

out of windows.

Before this moment

muffled important men—

but perhaps now

it will be harder to

ignore the messages

written tomorrow morning

in the curled ashes

at their feet.

—Poets Respond

June 25, 2017

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Olga Dermott-Bond: “My reaction to the Grenfell Tower tragedy was one of horror, disbelief, shock, grief. My immediate response was to write about it, through angry tears. Writing can be an act of empathy, and this was my way of connecting with this terrible event; reaching out to the victims; asking the question: why? Last night, I went to a lecture by Michael Rosen about ‘Why Writing Matters.’ He talked about ‘impossible writing.’ I live over one hundred miles away from Grenfell Tower and, of course, it is impossible for me to ever fully understand or carry the grief of the victims and their families. However, to me poetry is a way to try and express—to inhabit—the impossible sadness and insanity of this tragedy, to show those people who lost their lives or their loved ones that they are not alone.” (web)