Look for the helpers

A short poem for darker days

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash

I can't stop thinking about

the ones rushing to sweep up glass the day after. 
The ones who race to get blankets and throw arms around strangers. 

The security workers and the 'just-passing-by' ers
who decide not to leave, but to stay.

The camera carriers who do not shield their eyes
but try to tell the truths that no one else dares.

The truck drivers checking their wing mirrors
for missiles and driving on anyway.  

The doctors who, when everyone else has taken refuge,
decide they will still bandage bones in the dark.

The neighbours who use their bodies as barricades 
to give somebody else's family the chance to breathe another day.

The ones who carry on digging through the rubble long after
the cries have gone quiet. 

The ones who, when everyone else is running, turn
and go back the other way. 

The helpers, look for the helpers,
isn't that what they say? 

These are the people. These are the acts. 
This, is what we can't stop thinking about today. 

---

I started this poem after the murder of three young girls at their dance class in Southport in 2024. I carried on working on it watching the genocide that most world leaders are allowing to take place in Gaza. And then this week, I finished it after the terror attack that killed two members of the Jewish community, in my home city of Manchester.

There will always be the helpers. There will always be the ones who first and foremost believe in saving each other. Regardless of religion, or country of origin, or political leaning or skin colour or any of the ways in which we are told we are so far apart but actually so intrinsically connected. It helps me to remember the helpers. It is important that we remember them. For what they do, did, as well as teach.

These are the people.

The people that help to create the type of world I want to keep firmly in my sightline.

Incase you too are looking for something positive to cling on to.

With love, always,

Nelly x