War Is Over?

• Gemma Wyburn, Grade 11
• Poetry
• 2008

Child stands in dirt, crookedly tall;
Innocence shattered, hopes be gone, no choice but to struggle on;
No one pauses to offer aid; too many others share her disease;
Just another victim the land has mauled.
Silent streets stand deathly still;
No patter of footsteps, adult chatter nor children's song;
The houses, no more than coffins embracing the deceased;
A village gone for failure to comply to the iron will.
The cannons may be silent, but the tongues are polished steel;
Words become the preferred weapon that issues
Peace, that is just a shield under which the war marches on;
Giving the world no chance to heal.
I stand here alone, torn by the winds;
Great minds battle in diplomacy, courthouses and law;
But I want none of it, I want to choose;
My small voice is drowned in the war's din.