7/7 Remembered (Two poems)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Update [March 26 2016] There have been other terrorist atrocities around the world since I posted this poem and our thoughts including close to home in France and Belgium. Our thoughts have to be with the dead and injured, their families and friends. Inevitably, though, our we cannot help but wonder, where next? Wonder, yes, it is only natural, but we cannot let ourselves brood on the question or let it dominate our thoughts, dictate how we get on with our lives.  If terrorism exploits the very worst of human nature, the human condition itself is better and stronger than that which is why the love, peace and goodness in this world - and we only have to look around to see there is more of it than the media often suggest - will always triumph over any hate, wars and predilection for sheer evil.]

Today marks the anniversary of  London terrorist bombings in July 2005. My close friend (and cameraman) Graham and I were asked some time ago if we would film the 7/7 memorial in Hyde Park especially for a friend of someone who died in the terrorist attacks in London on July 7^th 2005. He lives and works abroad and has been unable to visit the memorial. He has also read the poems and asked me to read them.  Yesterday, I uploaded our efforts to You Tube. Hopefully, no one will find either poems or video intrusive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBo01eRFB

Yes, anniversaries have an important place in the public consciousness. Yet, for anyone caught up in the events of that awful day and/or directly affected by its terrible consequences, every day that passes is a day of remembrance. Our thoughts should be with them as well the fifty-two people for whom the memorial was created.

We can but try to move on whenever tragedy strikes, although moving on doesn't (ever) mean we leave anyone behind.

REMAINS OF THE DAY

Memory, smoke and screams

that left fifty-two fine people dead,

forever haunting our dreams

Innocence ripped at the seams,

where terrorism rears its ugly head;

Memory, smoke and screams

Despair takes all or so its seems

where hope on its heels often misled,

forever haunting our dreams

Where light but faintly gleams

that tracks the everyday hero’s tread;

Memory, smoke and screams

See inhumanity’s dark schemes

leave its enemies free if badly scarred,

forever haunting our dreams

Faith’s dark side, no love redeems,

its Heaven, even to its martyrs barred;

Memory, smoke and screams,

forever haunting our dreams

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011

YEARS ON

Let us all remember, years on,

all those cruelly snatched away

one summer's day in London

Come life's battles lost and won 

no terror shall (ever) win the day;

let us all remember, years on

A mother, father, daughter, son,

calling on Memory its part to play

one summer's day in London

Wherever terror's rage has gone

humanity, too, will ever have a say;

let us all remember, years on

If terror, it would target everyone,
for love alone did Earth Mother pray

one summer's day in London

Love, if sorely tried and put upon,

will always find a way, beside us stay;

let us all remember, years on,

one summer's day in London

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007, 2019

[Note: an earlier version of this poem appears in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007; consequently, it is not the version that accompanies the video.]