Empty Arms

• Tessa Matthews, Grade 10
• Poetry
• 2018

The fireflies light my path no more
And when I close my eyes I see not the approach of a dream,
But the awakening of a nightmare.
In the darkness the crescent moon does not glisten with hope,
Only the gleam of the reaper's scythe.
A row of crosses too long,
For lives too short to be taken.
The stench of death permeates the fragrance of victory,
War has no victors,
Only the empty arms of a mother's embrace.