Whenever I smell potato leek soup, I drift back to the Mardi Gras dinner, While serving the steaming hot side dish. Instead of hearing the soft music Playing in the background of the cafe I hear the clash of a glass plate falling to the floor And the loud chatter of hundreds of people. And whenever I eat pearl couscous, I’ll wander back to the tables Littered with plastic crawfish and beads. When it’s the day before Fat Tuesday And it’s seventy-degree weather, I’ll think of when we played Truth or Dare in the playground. Wherever I am, I’ll always remember that night, The day before Fat Tuesday. Alice Baumgartner, 12Chicago, Illinois
Poetry-Sense-of-Place
America Ever After
I love to go to the library walk through stacks and rows of books, picking whatever I like, the books pull me in. I can go on any adventure. I can sit and read all day, worming through them, reading out the whole shelf I am at home and somewhere else at the same time. One morning, I saw spinning planes thud into tragedy, crumbling around the whole of America; everybody listened, hushed. We sipped up the sadness. Hurt. I know I am safe in my house with people I love. I hear the rushing water of the sighing waterfall. Mom clicks away on her computer. I can see my little sister sit silently, waiting for Dad. I grab my book so I can disappear into a world of happily ever after. I see ash and broken brick. I am worried. There are people under there, too. My heart drops. I would not want to be there. I do not want a war. I think about other kids my age in different countries. They must be scared. The war might come to them. I am lucky to live in America. Tae Kathleen Keller, 8Waihapu, Hawaii
Fiesta
mariachis playing joyful songs and niños laughing street vendors, pregoneros, shouting out hopes of selling their goods las mujeres, the women, chatting as they slap tortillas on the patio these are the sounds of my México, the sounds que yo quiero mucho, the sounds I love Natalia M. Thompson, 11Madison, Wisconsin
