Who would have thought that a poet could have offered succor on a day like this? But he did. His name is Tony Walsh, a Manchester writer who goes by the handle “Longfella”—because of his greater-than-average height, one assumes. In front of a crowd of many thousands in Albert Square, in the civic heart of Manchester, as late-afternoon sunshine bathed the Victorian façade of the town hall, and as people in the crush climbed on statues to find a better view, and as a few held up homemade banners expressing love and solidarity, and others held bunches of flowers that they had brought to the ceremony, Walsh delivered a performance of a poem so resonant that the crowd cheered and laughed, and the eyes of the grown men who stood on either side of me grew glassy.

The city authorities called “a vigil” for 6 P.M., but Albert Square was teeming well before then. After the horrors that took place at the end of an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena on Monday, and the news that twenty-two people had died, including children as young as eight, Mancunians were naturally searching for some kind of meaning in the tragedy, or at least for togetherness in the face of it. But there was dissonance everywhere. Work had carried on, for most, as normal. Schoolchildren took exams. Criminal courts were in session. Moreover, today was the first ice-cream day of the British summer: blue skies and vapor trails. It was hard to reckon with such horrifying news in such pleasant weather.

There is no protocol for a vigil that I know of. But, by some peculiar reflex, everybody in Albert Square seemed to know what to do. Just before the clock of the town hall struck six, some loudspeakers began to play Edward Elgar’s “Nimrod,” which is as close to a national anthem of mourning as Britain possesses. (It is “Nimrod” that is played on Remembrance Day, when we commemorate our war dead.) When the music stopped, an impromptu silence, lasting at least a minute and started by nobody, began. I couldn’t hear a single conversation; the wind in the trees was audible. Meanwhile, a stream of worthies filed onto the stage, including the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn; the new mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham; the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron; and the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd. The silence was only broken when one of the dignitaries onstage began clapping—at which point, everybody else clapped, too.

There were then fine words by the Bishop of Manchester and the chief constable of the Greater Manchester Police, who spoke about the need for compassion in the wake of the night’s events. But it was not until Tony Walsh, the poet, took the microphone that the crowd was offered the catharsis it clearly craved.

Walsh read a poem called “This Is the Place,” which he wrote to commemorate the Manchester Arena’s twentieth birthday, in 2015. Walsh is not John Ashbery, but John Ashbery is not what Manchester needed tonight. Neither will Walsh’s poem bring back any murdered children, or heal the wounds the bomber made, or illuminate his crimes. For five minutes, however, the poet held thousands rapt. When he finished reading, he was cheered so intensely, it was as if he had scored the winning goal in the Cup final.

Watch Walsh read his poem below.