A POEM FOR TOMORROW - DAY SIX OF A POEM FOR APRIL EARLY

A Poem for Tomorrow

i.m. Emily Wilding Davison (11 October 1872 – 8 June 1913)

Was it Ascot or

Ainree, or Epsom Derby

that this Suffragette

entered the racecourse, threw

herself under galloping hooves

a thunder of horses

a river of jockeys riding the course in
bright, splashing colours

a waterfall of silks: emerald, turquoise
diamond-shaped

scarlet?

Is it Aintrree, Ascot, or

Epsom Derby where

women wear ‘creations’

and men sport with

cravats and weskits?

Was it for this that Suffragettes laid down their lives,

as Emily did, under galloping hooves, slashing like knives
into innocents' limbs and faces?

Was it for this, for this, that they sacrificed their lives?

A nation where politicians’ lie
and the disabled, the old and the innocent, the poor
and the trashed lay down their lives on what they once thought
was the green, green grass of:

liberty, democracy and 

does Arbeit really macht frei?



photo taken by Geraldine Green