Katie Zehner – Green High School

Transcending Time

Cross barren grounds and torn grey skies,
Past wooden tower casting black shadows;
Where dust settles upon the earth like flies
And the sun bleakly hides in the clouds.

These are the markings of an epitaph;
Whispering hidden secrets of a past crime,
Squeaking truth like a broken phonograph,
Betraying a horrific chapter in history.

Behind shunned gates ghosts sorrowfully roam,
Gasping cries icily slice the night air,
Corpses lie in scattered graves of honeycomb;
Countless fallen at the hands of a lone silhouette.

And though we bow in reverence and guilt
To remember the terrors of past years,
The strengths of man always to wilt;
This is not yet the learned end.

Traverse the chasm of distance and time,
Find other traces of covered massacre;
More mournful bells to sigh their chime
As soft tears fall from granite figures.

Swallowing rainforests and deserts dry
Grasp a people clean and innocent;
Womanish screams and childish cry,
Wails in the night that vanish with memory.

Sudanese sin and Iraqi plight;
Reigns of steel enclosed like noose,
Failed attempts for freedom flight
Ended in baths of blood and sorrow.

Why can't we learn the first time around
That hate never leads the path to light
And beating hearts stopped our ears resound;
Does it honestly take more than once?

And yet we plead over and again
To please remember what we've lost;
Culture to expose and ignorance to restrain
For no more cries, for no more lies.