I’d apologise to Wilfred Owen if I could meet him, but some how I think he’d understand……
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Along the corridors so clean and pale,
And hear the ping and suck of each machine,
Each laboured breath that’s on the edge of fail.
If you could see in every face the care
Plastered on with sweat to skin so bruised,
Each mark a sign of time spent as you dare,
The insufficient mask or absent veil,
My friend, you would not brief the clamouring press,
With words that hint at some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
JAL. 28.04.2020 in Longdendale on Worker’s Memorial Day 2020