Genocide

• Amanda Huynh, Grade 11
• Poetry
• 2009

Blind as a bat, deaf to the bone,
the news I hear makes me shudder.
My helpless words escape as a mutter,
“These atrocities, I must not condone.”
Those who kill,
hunt the streets for their next pawn.
Slaughtering thousands, they do not even mourn,
marching on with the wrong kind of will.

Those who shake,
cannot understand why the silence burns.
For those who are missing or gone, they yearn,
trying to save themselves from breaking.

A mother holds her son, afraid,
of what is lurking behind each turn.
They’re hoping their town, their people won’t burn,
hoping this memory will fade.