Homefront Prayer by Ross Thompson, written in Bangor during 2020 Lockdown
Thank God for nurses weeping in break rooms:
almost broken after a double shift,
cheeks striped red from elasticated strips
on masks designed to minimise the risk
of this deadly disease yet still in fear
that this thin armour is not sufficient
to safeguard the health of their families
yet with no hesitation delivering
priceless sympathy and medication
to their patients in the direst of straits.
Thank God for the doctors going over
the top, these modern day heroes
marching towards ground zero or bracing
groaning surge tents with meagre equipment
or facing the scythe with dwindling supplies
- terrified, no doubt, for their own lives yet
displaying grace under pressure: diamonds
forged in the darkness cast by a crisis,
ships made sturdy by weathering the storm,
their only directive… to do no harm.
Thank God for carers unseen and unknown
who may leave the ward yet bring their work home,
scrubs soaked in sweat, skin rubbed raw by foaming
soap, bloody, knackered, bone-bruised and battered,
unable to unshackle an anchor:
the weight of a life reaching its flatline.
Thank God for pharmacists dispensing meds
to the infirm with all kinds of ailments,
for the skilful fixing ventilators,
for agents of faith prevailing with cool
heads and warm hearts at bedsides of those lost
in dim valleys of shadow and frailness,
for those comforting the bereaved in bleak
vales of sadness and bitter grief, for
those braving bins brimful of glass and sharps,
for those in canteens preparing hot meals,
and further afield, outside hospital
walls, for those still reeling from when the globe
suddenly juddered yet still unafraid
to fetch provisions for vulnerable
sisters and brothers locked inside their homes
like Rapunzel, for all of those hoping
collateral damage is minimal,
parents barely coping with digital
schooling reluctant children yet faking
they are all-knowing, for the liminal
and isolated, daunted and lonely,
edgy and frustrated, the vincible,
the defeated, those buoyed by key workers
keeping essential services ticking
over, for farmers maintaining supply
chains, for pilots, seafarers and kindly
weight-bearers, for first responders and those
lodged in the doldrums, for those with their
backs towards the gallows, for those on fixed
term contracts and those on furlough, for those
facing foreclosure, for the rose-tinted
and pessimist, for the country’s lifeblood,
the salt of the earth, the grain in the wood,
the fire in the hearth, the bow in the rain,
the bringers of joy, the easers of pain.
Thank God for those who answer when we call.
Thank God for each one. Thank God for them all.