untitled.

my eyes are dry, my heart full
of pictures and stories.
my mind cannot quite
comprehend
the utterness
of this desolation.
.
genocide
seems too small a word
to encompass
such great tragedy.
too simple a phrase
to summarise
bloody pangas,
mass graves,
and nameless victims.
.
eight years old,
i never suspected the world capable
of such profound ignoring.
pretending away reality
should be left to children's minds.
.
still no mention in the history books
of my teenage education--
but then,
we also overlooked
armenia,
bosnia-herzegovina,
south african apartheid,
palestinian suffering,
amin's reign of terror,
and our own historic culpability.
.
past and present
seem difficult to reconcile.
even as we honour their memories,
they challenge us
to see
how history repeats itself,
like an old play
rewritten
with modern staging.
.
when will peace prevail
on this fragile earth?