The Slow March of Time
by Amelia Daniel, Woodleigh School
Finalist, Years 7 – 8, performance poetry
Time forgot her,
Lying on her shiver-inducing bed,
A number her only marking,
The cold her only memory.
Time forgot him,
Lying prostate on the ground,
Caught by a whirlwind of deceptive bullets,
Nameless, faceless, hand in hand.
Time forgot them,
Huddled against the winds,
Their house crumbling around them,
It’s an Athenic ruin,
But it’s destined to be swept from memory.
Time forgot her,
Barely alive on a boat,
Clinging to the distant shoreline of her home,
Letting go of her city of plans, rebuilding slowly.
Time, well it’s an unforgiving thing,
It captures the dates,
For ignorant schoolchildren to later recite.
It ebbs and flows,
It coats each swell in its glazed connotations.
But it neglects the beating hearts,
Or the not beating for that matter,
The destroyed souls who witnessed the ordeal.
It lets them fade away from relevance.
And so, I ask,
Will time forget them,
The innocent children,
Crying and asking their mothers,
“Will they let us go soon?”
Will it forget her,
The sobbing mother,
Of a baby boy who promised to return,
But who only found the call of the desperate mud?
Will it forget him,
As he watches the water climb and creep,
And hears men in suits talk on the TV about “what to do next”,
He dreads the future to come.
Will it forget her,
Crouched low in a corner,
To the naked eye she appears to be praying,
But really, she’s dreaming,
Of a time when she could pay for a meal.
Don’t let the fickle rhythm of time wash away these hopeful souls.
You, with your warm bed, and your full belly,
Me, who complains about the world.
You only aid and abet time’s slow march.
But the music will soon stop playing,
For it may be you next.
Your name is just another for time to break down,
Despite your happy thoughts.
And you can sit there and watch on the sidelines of it all,
If that will help you sleep at night.
And not to scare you, or make you falter,
But there’s only so many times that you can escape the frontlines,
Of this twisted system,
Before you too are just another captive of time.
Want to read more poems? Explore the other Years 7 – 8 finalists.