Family Guilt

• Sarah Beavan, Grade 8
• Poetry
• 2010

The lights flicker on, off, on, off
Like stars in the stretched shadows
The far away lamps of passing travellers
Awaken memories of that day
So many years ago

I heard the shots and saw the flash
The bodies that then fell
I watched my brother and my father
My mother and my sister too

And now so many years later
I watch the burnt remains
The last of my family
The last of my home

I bear the guilt and shame of one
Who left his friends to die
But one day it will go away

When Death takes me into his grasp
And troubles wash away