Florence Welch reached out to fans recently, asking them to submit lines to her ‘collective poem’. Now she has shared that poem online, bringing forth support and solidarity through quarantined times.
The Florence & The Machine frontwoman called out to followers on Instagram, asking fans to “come together in a different way” through the challenge of coronavirus and self isolation.
Over 8,000 fans collaborated in a collective poem Florence Welch put together as the world experiences coronavirus-induced social distancing.
“Please write one line you would like to add to a ‘Collective Poem’ and I will try and piece it together,” she wrote. “If you are feeling afraid, anxious or isolated I send you so much love. I am feeling the same. But creativity is a small blessing.”
The result of the public collaboration was shared on Twitter, and here is the final product.
Collective Poem
Written by you
🖤 pic.twitter.com/uV2M5uW2XL— florence welch (@florencemachine) March 19, 2020
“Alone, yet together,
Threads apart weaving as one,
I am worried about what the future will bring for my mother,
I lit a match for you,
In the calmness of my room,
Rituals return to the stovetops and altars arrive in our bellies.
And I shall wait three days, 20 years,
Or even an age for a brighter moment,
Falling in love,
Like never before,
On opposite sides of a long-locked door,
And one day looking back,
I will find a reason to hug you tighter.
I recall the hands touching the violin while exiting the church,
Every petal a loved one,
The gathered children looking out.
Sometimes I forget the sun,
But there it is again,
Spring is pouring from my mouth,
I’m enjoying feeling small and perishable,
Then becoming the sky,
I let myself fall in.
And then it all began,
This drowsiness is scary,
The days blurred,
I kiss your ribs because I want to feel the way you breathe,
I keep the smallest stick wedged in the door.
The God in me begins to pray and knows that we sung choruses from our balconies,
To give ourselves some company,
Hiding from the phantom in our city,
An overwhelming sense of contradiction,
Staying away from what I love out of love,
I was waiting for the birds to tell me it was over,
Afraid as a fevered child, bound to the bed.
Just look for the grace of your mother, my daughter, the health care worker,
Who comes with a cloth for your head,
A long forgotten astronaut caught in the atmosphere,
And as it spins aimlessly,
And now alone in the dark,
It remembers how to breathe,
How to close its eyes,
How to simply be.
Maybe this i permission, to rest, to love, to breathe, to make beauty in madness,
Music in silence, to write letters, to say sorry, to feel our bodies, to feel compassion.
Maybe this is a lesson in deepest truths and simplest pleasures.
Will we ever again be asked to stay still to save lives?
Early spring thaws the ground enough to make it kind to girls who run barefoot through woods,
Palm leaves glittering in the sky,
A hurricane of fear,
And despite it all, we’re still here,
Only now we understand the perils of our fathers.
Somewhere out of it but right,
Right here,
Now is our turn to take care of you.”
Many festivals and tours have been cancelled worldwide in an effort to respect social distancing rules, and Glastonbury 2020 is among the latest to be cancelled.
Artists are coming together online to host virtual gigs and collaborating with fellow musicians to ensure music fans in self-isolation are kept entertained.
