Shawnigan Lake School is celebrating the recent achievement student Abby Dyer.
Dyer (Grade 12, from Cambridge, Ontario) has won first place in the Senior Poem category in the Canadian Legion’s 2010-21 Youth Remembrance Contest (B.C./Yukon) with her poem “When the Clouds Cry.” For more information, including an audio clip of Dyer reading her poem, see https://www.legionbcyukon.ca/what-we-do/2020-2021-youth-remembrance-contest.
When the Clouds Cry
The sky is a collage of grey,
The clouds are swollen and heavy
And sun seems to have abandoned us all.
It feels as if all the life has been, stolen away
As I walk towards the crosses
A sensation of overwhelming sadness overcomes
My carefully measured thoughts
Which becomes, a tide of inconsolable emotion
That refuses to be contained.
As if we could ever understand
the magnitude of the 11th day of the
11th month of the 11th hour.
As if we could understand
What it is like to go to war.
The poppies seem to stare
Their black hearts penetrating, into our hearts.
As if we could understand
The true sacrifice, the true pain,
The true endurance, the true destruction,
The truth is, we cannot.
We live this day each year
And we are told stories
Something about sacrifice, words about pain,
Stories about endurance, pictures about destruction.
But they aren’t just stories, they are real.
The sacrifice and pain and endurance and destruction,
They are real. I wish it didn’t have to be that way.
Remembrance Day, reminds us to relish the moments.
To understand what gifts we have been given.
Stand silently in the name of sacrifice, it allows us to celebrate, being free.
So, as I walk through the white crosses and the clouds begin to cry
I know their tears are for the soldiers and for peace.