The writer

It’s easy to feel powerless, frustrated, and even depressed by the news from day to day. To wonder what we can do - because we are truly powerless in the context of world events and those with the power often have less than we might think as they work within the shifting sands of clashing needs, old grievances, and differing agendas. There things we can do but they feel inadequate and effective change takes so long.

I have come to the conclusion that we can each do whatever our time, gifts allow and, to use a religious expression, what we feel ‘called’. Our purpose in life. That both cannot ever be enough and also has to be enough - it is all we can do. I am reminded of the Heaney poem. Digging, in which he talks of how his father and grandfather worked the soil and how he has ‘no spade to follow men like them’. What he does have, ‘between my finger and my thumb’ is a ‘squat pen’. ‘I’ll dig with that’ he. concludes.

Applying the same logic to world events, I came up with the lines below.

The writer

Politicians talk 
of growth 
progress
reform
Campaigners demand justice
Autocrats hang on to power

Old wounds produce 
murder 
invasions
war crimes

Sides are taken 
people suffer 
go hungry 
lose homes 
flee 
are abused

What can I do?
I pick up my pen 
sit at the keyboard  
produce words 
explore 
the recesses 
of the world’s mind -
tell stories