I Will Fight For You

• Tyran Dejonge, Grade 6, Byford John Calvin School
• Poetry
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Word Zone 2016' competition

The water shifted uncertainly, sensing danger.
The men around me shuffled their feet nervously.
Worried looks on faces betrayed intense emotion.
Air, tense and heavy, filled with pride of what lay ahead.
The commander urging us on shouted orders.
Heavy guns, grim Black Death machines of war,
Preparing to rain down destruction and terror,
To leave a family lifeless, empty and ripped apart.
I clutched the photo of my wife tightly and then the tears came.
They rolled down my war torn cheeks freely.
"I will fight for you." No one is going to take my family down,
Down so far that it never gets back up. Down so far that
It turns into a lifeless, mourning, bedraggled form.

"I will fight for you," I whispered.
"I will fight for you with my life."