Am I capable of what?
Of catching what?
A bus?
I'm sorry. I'm not sure I understand you.
Haven't I just told you of the pain I am in daily,
how I have to school myself to bear it,
how it eats away at the edges of my life
while my courage shrinks smaller every day?
I have such pain in my back,
and in these poor hands of mine;
and my eyesight, too, is failing.
A bus, you say.
I do not understand you.
What is it you would have me do?
Work? Yes I used to work.
Until my body was pressed
past all enduring.
I was a nurse. Yes.
There was a fall. At work.
My life was much altered that day.
Now you come at me with questions
I do not understand.
Have you not heard what I have told you?
Am I capable of catching a bus?
Are you capable of feeling compassion?
Are you capable of human kindness?
Are you capable of love?
Abigail Ottley Wyatt, June, 2015
http://rt.com/uk/209731-suicide-woman-benefit-axed/#.VXv-lifDZzA.facebook
This blog has now been re-vamped as a Burrow of Resistance. Rabbit has seen what is happening in the world and, frankly, he thinks something should be done. Mad Rabbit Crying Out Loud is looking for the poetry of compassion, that is poetry that protests the impact on people's lives of the current climate of austerity. It is also interested in hearing the stories of those who have been directly affected by the 'cuts'.
Monday 15 June 2015
Capable (for Jacqueline Harris)
Labels:
Abigail Wyatt,
anti-austerity,
benefit sanctions,
Jacquline Harris,
poem,
social and welfare cuts. cuts,
suicide
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