Visions Of War Poem by Tendai Evans

‘Let my greater sorrow comfort you in this time of peril and so much wary. Let it pour oil unto waters that trouble the mind. I have nothing alive for a youth’s days of opportunity are now over. I offer my experience hoping you avoid the web of lashing pain. The visions I have are of times running in the cold rain, seeking shelter under the trees for home never was near. Now and until forever, I remember like as in a dream the presences of unrequited opportunity that lingers in the conscious as milky memories. A youth’s naïve mind crossed into foreign land and toiled without thought and care. Stricken with misery for lack of hope, under the barren blue skies far from our motherland we laboured to survive. Our tainted breaths hung with infection, we were outcasts loathed by all who saw us. The callous air forever our nest as we lay from a day’s wage. Hope showered upon sporadic fields and rotted like a marrow. Home was calling already the ears were deaf. My tears pour heavy upon my cheeks, I have lost most of my kin who now lay in the shadow of an infinite night. In these moments of lamenting, time seems to penalise the wounded. I barely can stand nor see my eyes forever stare into darkness. Where is harmony in this human catastrophe? Where is fame in this staginess of dreams? For fortunes are shadows dying with the night and the night remains a home for the dreaming…’