Sacrifice

They Fought For You, Have You Forgot?

Shall I vote or not?

She died for you, have you forgot

Who fought for you so you can say

Shall I vote or not today?

 

Shall I vote or not?

She fought for you to have the choice

To use your vote, and use your voice

Or stay at home today

 

Shall I vote or not?

What sister are you who forgets

The suffering of suffragettes

So you can vote today?

 

Shall I vote or not?

They fought for you, do you forget

The women who don’t have it yet

The vote, or yet a say?

 

Shall I vote or not?

What, woman, are you mad or what

They fought for you, have you forgot

The price they had to pay?

 

Shall I vote or not?

My sister, listen, hear the sound

Of hooves of thunder on the ground

Lest we forget the day

 

Shall I vote or not?

They fought for you, have you forgot

Who fought for you so you can say

Shall I vote or not today?

 

© Gail Foster 6th February 2018

The Sacrifice of Song

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The Choir of St. John the Baptist, Devizes

sing Evensong at St. Paul’s Cathedral

4th January 2017

*

The Temple of St. Paul’s, at Evensong;

The voices of our little children ring

In tones divine, as through the ages long

Our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters sing

How lofty, lowly, wide, and deep, and high

The mystery, the magnitude, the sound

How thunderous, the whispered gilded sigh

Of doves that fall from dome to holy ground

On altar bright; what sacrifice is this

This mass of light, this sungen density

This quantum quality, this ancient bliss

That renders speechless such a man as me

I fall upon my knees upon the floor

Sing, children, songs as these, for evermore

*

© Gail Foster 6th January 2017

Potatoes

*

We shall have to eat potatoes with our meagre humble pie

Sit chilly in our garrets writing verse until we die

Sacrifice our sanity, relationships, and health

Forego all thoughts of kudos, recognition, comfort, wealth

To draw the light from darkness, and to write upon the page

Words of painful beauty, words of love, and myth, and rage

To be alchemical, polemical; be vulnerable, be bold

Make magic from mundanity, and turn the dross to gold

To be poor, but to be Poets, who shall ever blessed be

For we possess potatoes and the power of poetry

* 

© Gail Foster 2016