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Poetry, Grades 7 – 9: First Place
My Eden is Bare — Lia Harel
Today the elders moan their voiceless prayers
in between the light piercing through the haze.
So many of us here have not been spared
from a lumberjack’s swift swing of the blade.
For centuries we’ve stood in this soil
with heads high up among the heaven’s blue.
Looming over our kingdom, we’re royals
in a peaceful forest of pure virtue.
They’ve stabbed cold steel into our mighty backs.
“THWACK” rings out and there falls yet another.
A long ways down. Such a deafening crack.
So long my old friend, good-bye my brother.
Dust, dirt, and homeless leaves pollute the air.
Ample silence, but my Eden is bare.
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