Silent Story
On a cold winter morning The lake breathes out steam Like a giant tea kettle. Two ducks in the middle As still as a painting. Why haven’t they gone south? A bird hangs up in...
Poems
Poetry and verse from young voices
View:
On a cold winter morning
The lake breathes out steam
Like a giant tea kettle.
Two ducks in the middle
As still as a painting.
Why haven’t they gone south?
A bird hangs up in the air.
Let’s sit on the shore
And soak in the quiet.
Instead, we zoom by
And join in the traffic.
Carved, crooked peaks outline themselves against a
Yellowing sky,
Deep crags littered with fertile eggs
Cawing to the firming moon,
We flap between their statuesque
Shoulders, draped in heavy fog
They don’t dance
Their shadows do,
Trembling freely outside of the rocks’ impenetrable cases,
Sharing secrets with the sand,
A peppered canvas,
Which formed when
The smeary stars
Cracked and crumble...
I watch them
Each face unknown
Their eyes move back and forth
I walk to my desk
In the corner, alone
The teacher begins
I sit there
Watching
Each face wondering
Whispering
Who is she?
As if I’m not there
I glance up
At the girl in front
I see a smile appear
And she laughs
Quietly
Pointing at me
My face burns crimson
I stare down
At my desk
Out of the corner of my eye
I see
Someone toss
A paper
O...
White is the color of
Beautiful
Like a dove
Soaring over a forgotten mountain lake
Snow
Blanketing the landscape
In a soft white
Paradise
Essence of pine
Like a cello’s music
Sweeping the night
Alone
But that makes it even more
Serene
Like a white sail
Rising up a mast
Against a coral blue sea
Waving about
Taking
You there
Like a patch
Of white roses
Among the ashes
The start
Of new life
There he was
Such a tiny person
I looked at him
Sleeping peacefully
Suddenly his eyes open
Brand new brown eyes
Staring at me
Blinking and adjusting his eyes to a new experience
Light
His mind consuming
New thoughts
New faces
New world
New everything
He is a new person
It was a picturesque day at a pond,
The glassy water gently undulated,
Transforming turtles to twigs.
The swans slowly carved their way forward,
The paddleboats hypnotically
Slap slap slapped.
But no day is perfect for everyone,
Like the coming of fall,
For betwixt the lily pads,
A swan lay
Dead,
Its head limp at its side.
The forest is calm,
only an occasional chirp of a bird,
breaks the silence,
the sun is buried in a blanket of clouds,
only a few golden rays escape,
just enough to penetrate the darkness,
cool wind rustles through the trees,
gently swaying their nimble branches,
so peaceful,
one single leaf spirals to the ground,
twirling, spinning,
now upon the brown fallen leaves,
lies one of a brilliant sun-yel...
NEW DELHI, INDIA, 2002
Staring wide-eyed out of the car window
I look down at the dusty bodies of children clustered below me.
Their hair is streaked with dust and grime
Their skin darkened to a crisp by the intensity of the broiling
summer sun.
Their writhing hands clutch at the shiny silver metal of our car
Grabbing hungrily at the colorful juice boxes my parents offer
from the windows.
I leave for school,
Strolling with my mother.
My tiny pink backpack is slung over my shoulder.
It is a crisp, autumn day.
All the leaves
Changing pigments.
My mother
Constantly reminding me to
Walk faster.
To keep up with her,
I drag my little feet along.
Into the dirt they go…
And there! As I round the next corner,
I hear a faint tinkling.
It’s not my imagination.
I curl my cold fingers
Around the yellow Frisbee
Coil my arm back
Dip it low, flex my wrist,
Release.
It sails smoothly through the air
Floats gently above my father’s head
And then
The wind carries it slowly
Into his waiting hands
He smiles and tosses it
Back into the wind
I am prepared
My arms are open, ready
As his were
To grasp it, to hold it in my clutches
But instead
The wind takes it,
Swo...