Poems   Innocence and War   One dull morning in September I saw a child standing there in the street Just standing there, staring at me And when I looked, he looked down at his feet His nose was bleeding down his chin His eyes were blackened and wet with tears His skin was pale and covered with memories Black and blue the colours of his fears It was raining but he just didn't care He was hidden somewhere in his mind He wasn't conscious, but still awake Leaning on any comfort that he could find I could see in his eyes that he wanted to go home Back to the comforts he knew were real But I knew he would never go back there Stopped by barriers of hate and steel I looked behind him and saw his comfort Lying on the concrete all covered in blood He was guarding and protecting the corpses He was an orphan: he had lost his childhood His parents and sister were lying there, dead Riddled with bullet holes, propped up against a wall I looked around to find someone to help I turned around just in time to see him fall I saw at once; the situation was helpless He shuddered and died, surrounded by his fear As I helplessly watched, filled with pity Down his soiled, innocent face came a single tear   About this poem   This is a pretty special poem to me - at the time of the war in Kosovo I had a pen pal who lived in Serbia. I'd started writing to her when she replied to a letter I'd put in each of the boxes I sent on the Operation Christmas Child project. I'd wondered why she had gotten a box, and then the war broke out over there. I didn't hear from her for months - this was when I wrote the poem. Understandably I was imagining the worst possible reason for her silence. In the end it was OK - she lived in Serbia, but she was Hungarian by nationality. Her family went back to Hungary for the Winter holidays and when the war broke out they stayed there until it was over. Very lucky, I think! I remember coming second in a poetry competition at school with this poem.