Every parent who stood where you stood,
Collecting their son or daughter from a night out,
Draws breath deeply,
Do you have a memory of youth, at a pop concert,
Knowing the taxi of mum or dad would be there,
To take you safely home?
We who stood where you stood,
Stand with you now.
This is the place,
Of poets, innovators, of flower layers and great north runners,
Of the bee tattoo.
Where #WeStandTogether,
A City United.
In another place…
A mum yet again searches a child who will not return,
Yet here
No poet’s lament to empower you,
No blanket of flowers to enfold you.
No tattoo offers solidarity,
For that is the place
These things rarely make the news any more.
Stand together, Manchester.
Stand together in grief, in love, in solidarity, in hope.
Stand together with each other,
Stand together too with that other place.
We did not stand where they stood,
But in our longing for a world where love is stronger than hate,
We stand together now.
