Bleary eyed sleepy bivouacees
Clamber, disabled, from under the trees.
One, Peter McDaniel, is worse on his pegs
As cerebral palsy tugs at his legs
We’ll do what we want and not as you choose.
They threaten and warn him that he may well lose
The battle to stay with the team he has chosen
Through thicket and gully and felled trees a dozen.
But team they are and team they stay
And Peter McDaniel will not lose his way.
Then out under moonlight in snow thick and white
They meet the first problem they’re faced with that night.
A fallen oak, how will Peter cope?
The team helps him over – then under the next
Supporting him helping him –
Then they are vexed.
We can hardly get over this one ourselves
We can’t just leave Peter – but then Peter delves
into scrub land unnoticed by others less quick
And out on the other side – that did the trick.
So the team quickly follow Peter’s bright lead
And from their predicament now are all freed
Peter’s a hero. He’s leader round here
Now we can push on without any fear.
But soon lost and weary, the night passing by
The team getting fractious, and one starts to cry.
But Peter is by her, and she rests her head
On the breast of a SPASTIC? She’d rather be dead.
But rest it she does and soon she is calmed
And back in the team, no longer alarmed
by the night and the cold and the stones and the bog
and the thistles and gorses
or ‘spastics’ at all.
(Inspiration can come from the most unexpected of places)