Unappreciated Sacrifice

• Pauline Foster, Grade 9
• Poetry
• 2007

Young men's bones are turned to dust
On the battlefield
Doing what they must
Soldiers like robots, they obey
But the Kings and Emperors, they stay
And watch the action from their throne
And when a thousand more have gone
They groan
"What a pity" are their sympathetic words
No guilt for what they urged
Their robots to do
Whilst the screams of mothers
Echo across the plains
For the sons they lost
War is waged
But at what cost...?