The flowers of the forest
More than five rugby teams' worth, of men, every week, dead by their own hands,
Young men mostly, three times as many men as women,
Nearly 6000 a year, 60,000 over a decade and....
rising.
Using the traditional routes to oblivion - hanging from a tree, opening the arteries, being free with the pills
A closed garage and exhaust fumes, jumping off high-rise flats, bridges, cheap thrills...but....
With no turning back. No second chance. Sometimes with notes, often with not.
This virus, this epidemic, this plague, this destroyer-of-families, goes mostly unnoticed.
We're all busy and...anyway...sotto voce...
After all they're mostly white, working class males
Not the best qualified for life in our society. The devil take the hindmost and all that.
And anyway didn't Mrs T tell us there is no such thing as society - greed is good - all that.
These rough lads have their uses, you know the sort, the sort we rely on in war.
The unsung heroes. That sort.
Those dragged up in 'care', those constantly neglected are over-represented
Those who are hurt easily and never show it - they too, vastly over - represented amongst the dead
Those who are inarticulate, autistic, bullied - over-represented too.
And every one precious,
Every one a miracle of love,
Every one in need of a helping hand.
Including us.
John Marks
Mon 15th Oct 2018 20:41
Thank you Ray and thank you Keith. The public discourse in the UK (and the USA) is now so petty it beggars belief - who said what to whom, who feels offended, who needs to apologise, who feels excluded, who said something on twitter - whilst the funerals of these young men and women are taking place in market towns, cities and villages, and families are left bereft, broken. Too many parents burying their children. And if we don't speak out about this obscene waste of life, who will? Not the politicians, nor the celebs, not the cognoscenti, not all the professional bull-shitters whose vapid opinions fill the air waves.