24/06/2022
💛 UKRAINE FUNDRAISER 💙
Saturday 25 June, 5pm to 11.30pm at The Barn, Went's Meadow, Presteigne. Fantastic line-up - The Destroyers, Little Rumba, The Poobahs and DJ Stef Mo with event compered by Loose Baker.
Bar, good food & raffle. 🔔 Tickets from The Workhouse Gallery (cash only) or online from http://wegottickets.com/event/547366.
Sheep Music, Mid Border Arts and individuals from the community have all come together and worked hard to organise what will be an amazing gig down on Went’s Meadow, with the added bonus of raising as much as possible to aid those affected by the crisis.
The two charities we are raising money for - The Red Cross Ukraine Appeal and The Presteigne Area Refugee Support Group 🇺🇦
Resistance by Simon Armitage
It’s war again: a family
carries its family out of a pranged house
under a burning thatch.
The next scene smacks
of archive newsreel: platforms and trains
(never again, never again),
toddlers passed
over heads and shoulders, lifetimes stowed
in luggage racks.
It’s war again: unmistakable smoke
on the near horizon mistaken
for thick fog. Fingers crossed.
An old blue tractor
tows an armoured tank
into no-man’s land.
It’s the ceasefire hour: godspeed the columns
of winter coats and fur-lined hoods,
the high-wire walk
over buckled bridges
managing cases and bags,
balancing west and east - godspeed.
It’s war again: the woman in black
gives sunflower seeds to the soldier, insists
his marrow will nourish
the national flower. In dreams
let bullets be birds, let cluster bombs
burst into flocks.
False news is news
with the pity
edited out. It’s war again:
an air-raid siren can’t fully mute
the cathedral bells -
let’s call that hope.
