Painful reminder

• Adele Smith, Grade 9
• Poetry
• 2005

Her heart was heavy, her eyes downcast, salty from tears of pain,
longlost searching for her kin, but it was all in vain.
Still she wandered near and far, over mountains for her lost,
she never stopped and never faltered, for she knew the cost.

She would be killed, even slaughtered, if the truth were to be known;
she was the one who had let them loose, and so her pain had grown.
They were outraged, they had cried, her friends had left her there,
she hoped they would forgive her, but it was hope despaired.
They would not forsake her, or just give her one last chance.
She was dishonoured in their eyes, her horse would never prance.

A past reminder of what she had, of what she always knew,
A time of war, a time of pain, she knows it to be true.
It's gone, it's lost, a world of love, gone to a world of hate.
She never figured just how much, the sufferance of her fate.
A painful reminder it happened to be, and one that would suffice,
to seize her one and only chance to find another life.