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 crumbled We gulls fly, The stones too stiff To crane back their necks And see us, Swooping, whooping, Following an invisible course Sliced into the sky Eden Amital, 13San Francisco, California
Poetry-Animals
The Brown-and-White Tabby
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 spin around And lay my eyes on it! Yes! It’s a brown-and-white tabby! Mother scolds, “Mia, keep walking. You get so distracted over little things in life.” As our walk progresses, I still hear the tinkling, sweet little bells ringing from the kitty’s neck. Every few seconds I turn my head around, Checking to see if the tabby is still there, And it is. As I check back one last time, my mother says, “Mia, we’re here at Linden. Hurry up, Or you’ll be late!” “Bye, kitty! See you tomorrow!” Mia Ba-Lu Hildebrandt, 12Glen Ridge, New Jersey
The Loss of a Leaf
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. Two deceivingly collected swans swam up, Their wings arched over their backs. One of the mourners swam up and went from calm and collected, To aggressive and emotional. It began biting the neck of the dead swan, wings pumping, causing a great ruckus. Was it cannibalizing or freeing the other swan from its eternal sleep? That swan will be denied so much, Days like today, Cygnets, And the late summer water relaxing away troubles. Was it dead from natural causes, or man-made ones? Could it have been saved? So many questions, Like the water in the clouds, So much stress and more worry than bugs in a humid summer’s night. All from The loss of a leaf. Peter Satterthwaite, 13Cranston, Rhode Island
