“Unadorned is a heart that’s stripped of its beauty.” - Thompson Emate She saw an empty room, A place that had lost its bloom, She walked through a hollow space, It was a gloomy face. The place had lost its beauty, It was a book with no continuity, The silence took her down memory lane, Like a parched ground inundated with rain. Her homeland had been recalcitrant to light, Cloaked by perpetual night, It had become an utter shadow, And a shrivelled meadow. Tears streamed down her eyes, She became cold as ice, Redemption seemed far away, Her homeland was an unyielding clay. A first-place podium finish in the Poetry Soup Contest.