A child sits at a desk learning
About World War One,
Gallipoli, the Western Front,
Passchendaele and the Battle of Somme,
While around him the world stops breathing.
A child sits at a desk learning
While a match has been lit.
Temperatures rage and bushfires scorch,
Its fury, wrathful,raging, burning.
A child sits at a desk learning
While winds howl through Hobart,
Families float in floods,
Waves surging, swallowing, hollowing.
A child sits at a desk learning
While our home crumbles.
Ice sheets melt while we sleep.
Some weep but greed speaks.
A child sits at a desk learning
Drowning in a sea of sin,
Passed on by those before him.
Wondering how many oceans he must swim,
For understanding to begin.
A child sits at a desk learning
About how he fits into the picture.
Bars on his heart,
Locks on his eyes,
Forced into the box,
No saviour knocks.
And no history lesson changed anything.
A child sits at a desk learning
About war, about the anger of the Earth.
About how the world could be his,
If only he could salvage its ruins,
Make his voice heard,
And join the fight
For the future.
A child sits at a desk learning
About the need to leave that desk behind.
Sahansa Udawatta's poem 'A Child Sits at a Desk Learning' was awarded Second Prize in the 2022 Andrew Hardy Youth Poetry Prize (16 years and under section)