A Distant Hope

• Amanda Brink, Grade 9
• Poetry
• 2007

My unwilling ears hear with heightened awareness
Every click, clack, click
And sharp, deafening bang of hungry gunfire
Enveloping with each painfully victorious blow, after blow.

Looking over their scattered lifeless bodies, so dear.
What does it take from man to set such patronising goals
With unconcerned determination that runs too high to see
That hope is nowhere near?

Bitter tears sting my dimmed eyes
As one after the other they fall,
Honourable at heart and precious each one...
Young lives perished, with no time for goodbyes.

An anger burns with wild flames of dancing fire
Leaving ashes of remorse,
Ashes of shattering memories, ashes of fear
That any hope at all... is nowhere near.