The Shield Wall

The Shield Wall

When the enemy attacks we do our best
to thwart it's worst intentions, to protect
the ones we love from those heinous crimes.
Collectively, we can recall the times
when mutual love was founded on respect,
solidarity being the crucial test.

We're now, somehow, in defensive mode,
the gains we made are cruelly taken back
to feed a monster gleeful in it's pride,
hubristic, a skipping, gloating stride
as it mounts a frontal, brute attack
upon the sense of our social code.

We know, these days, this disease will fail
to undermine our will to carry on,
though now the bugle blows for our retreat.
The occupation of each local street
is temporary, this blight, it will be gone,
we will re-energise, we will derail

the fatuous assertions that it makes.
We'll be like the warriors of old
who linked their shields together in defiance,
sought in each other, comradely reliance,
disciplined, brave and self controlled,
ready when our spirit reawakes.