It’s mysterious indeed. It will rise and fall, and people will depend on it. If you listen closely you can hear them whispering and the ocean singing. At the bottom of dreary the salty water makes my eyes burn. Deep in the nothings of the earth are where it lives. At the break of dawn, it rustles and rolls up and splashes the world. It has a question like everything else. Its hopelessness and so much question makes people question harder. But it remains unanswered. A mystery indeed. Analise Braddock, 9 Katonah, New York
Poem
THE IMAGINATION
The imagination is always misplaced. But you got what key you got. Not changing a thing. Stick it up a pickle tree or in your knee. Maybe get it stung by a bee. It’s always getting lost. Brainstorm a bit but won’t get you that far. Can’t be chosen or recreated. It gets stuck in a hole when you’re down in deep thinking. Because Doctor Imagination says no today. Can I try to remake my imagination? I could. I would. I should. Oh but then again you get what you got. Analise Braddock, 9 Katonah, New York
THE BABY AND THE ROCKING CHAIR
There sat the baby in her glory spot. She came every day to admire it. It lived in the woods with no owners of its own. The baby blinked and admired the moon. She remembered her name, Daisy, as in mama. Vines grew around the baby’s glory spot. It started to break down. Eventually it was nothing. Daisy will always remember the rocking chair in the woods. Analise Braddock, 9 Katonah, New York
THE WORLD IS WAITING
I know the world is waiting. I live in a stump inside a tree, Ready for people to see. I’ll glow like the moon. I’ll dance and sway over meadows. The earth feels like home. Analise Braddock, 9 Katonah, New York
WE SHALL PLAY
We shall play till day turns to night and night to day, till the planets explode and crumbly bits glide down to Earth, till the eerie glow in the basement is gone, till flying cars dip and soar. We shall play till the world’s last light is blown out . . . By the lips of someone who has been playing for a thousand years and beyond. Analise Braddock, 9 Katonah, New York
SATURN’S GRAND LEAVE
Half sobbing, half heartbroken it left. Rings faded, color lost in a twinkle. It dipped and bowed and pleaded its goodbye. As it walked away it said I’ll be back someday. It came back indeed. All gray and shriveled down. A few craters lay on it. Its atmosphere was hard as ice. It orbited differently. For its gas had gone. Analise Braddock, 9 Katonah, New York
morning
the sounds of morning greet me with unpleasant cheer the world’s awake after what feels like years of solitude the earth is smiling the birds are singing but still i lay heavy like a log refusing to move things are happening cities are bubbling boiling with life and sound mixing and whirring machines go round and round early morning adventure doesn’t hit me but the gentle sound of rain tapping my roof slithering down until the brown wet muck meets it and the warm calming cave that is my bed excites me the most on this rainy messy saturday morning Juliet Del Fabbro, 11 Richmond, VA
summer nights
summer nights are cool like ice cubes melting in your mouth stars paint the roof over our heads rewriting the world the breeze lays low sneaking its way like a serpent parting armies of ivy nights like paintings the nights you’ll remember Juliet Del Fabbro, 11 Richmond, VA
jump
my toes grip the edge as i peer down down into the blue hole of gloom my heart becomes a motorcycle running on the adrenaline of summer adventure wind scrapes my cheek as my knees shake weakly the dark swirls call me chanting jump pulling me with a rope i drop Juliet Del Fabbro, 11 Richmond, VA Abigail Craven, 13 Harland, WI
Aubade: Roslyn
Bluebells bring upon faith— happy teardrops waiting to be unfurled, tendrils on their stem still waiting to grow, eager for the beauty that a bell withholds. All other flowers blur behind these bells of wisdom, like back in the old house in Roslyn, where we had a mini garden with orange tulips gleaming in the fading moonlight of fertile brown soil, earthy and sweet, and I would fold in my fertilizer beads: green pearls were what I called them as a child— each pearl giving rise to its most perfect plant: beingness folded inside, all as one, soul in body. Sabrina Guo, 13 Oyster Bay, NY Lulu DeMallie, 11 Naples, NY
Bored
I am bored, I am bored. Like a boat That is moored In a dreary bay On the sea, Rocking gently. Under the stars, who twinkle merrily. And the gulls, who squawk terribly. Isabel Goodey, 11 Livingston, NJ
Birds
They tweet, They trill, And always seem very thrilled. They soar, They glide, And climb the clouds. Until they come Right back to me, Into the birdhouses, Where they know they’re free. Isabel Goodey, 11 Livingston, NJ Sage Millen, 10 Vancouver, BC
