Stone Soup

Where young artists paint the world with words

The international magazine of stories, poems, and art by young writers and artists. Published continuously since 1973.

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For No One

I watch her
From the garden
A baby girl
Wobbling around, like a buoy
On a choppy ocean,
Batting playfully
At her rainbow of toys,
Her blue eyes,
Darting around the room.
Her mother softly coos,
“So big,”
With a pearly smile
Drifting gently up her face.
The baby shoots
Her tiny fingers
Towards the heavens.
The mother,
Clapping and cheering,
Tells everyone.

But when I
Was a sprout,
Nestled warm
In my cocoon of soil,
Like the jelly encased
In a fluffy doughnut,
Soaking up the nutrients,
Readying for my awakening,
The thunder boomed to me,
“So big!”
With its blinding smile
Shooting straight to the ground.
I sprawled out
My verdant fingers
And rocketed to the sky,
My tiny heart full
Of pure pride;
All the creatures in the forest
Saw me,
But they told
No one.

For No One Mara Schiffhauer
Mara Schiffhauer, 12
Tabernacle, New Jersey