Point us to the sky

Soundless and crowdless, 

Our cityless streets are stripped of themselves.

Spires and steeples, though silent, still needle the sky, 

While confetti, breeze-beaten,

Falls from cherry trees in empty churchyards. 

Above us, and around us, only sky. 

Sun-bleached and latticed with clouds,

That sky, alone, is untainted, 

Untouched by our two-metre cells. 

Somehow, that sky is more stable,

And purer than ever before.

Purer, except for that one night when, 

Falling from that same sky, the angels spoke of Hope, 

A Hope that was one of us, 

A Hope that could live with the dying and dead. 

And yet, his storm-stilling hands stretched out to the tar-coated sky, 

That same Hope, while dying, cried out: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?

My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

But three days of skyless death could not hold him in, 

And Hope, unburied, rose up to the sky.

My God, have you forsaken us?

Lord, amidst the shadows of these soulless streets

Point us to the sky.