Poetry-Reflections

In an art museum in Chicago my dad and Van Gogh stare at each other. On a kitchen table in Sanford my mom watches me draw. In the museum gift shop my dad buys me a print of Starry Night. At home in my room Starry Night hangs above my bed, calming like a space gallery, yellow, white, black, and blue. Jude Stumpf, 8Sanford, North Carolina

Either the boat did not want to be withdrawn from the water, or the water did not want to let its new prize go. Waves of green foam rolled over the railing in a calm firmness, and the trees cast shadows on the rippling water pooling at the edge of a concrete slab where a red truck’s wheels were spinning in the mud. A few more inches and the rubber would have connected to the waves bouncing off the boat’s hull. I sometimes think of life’s fractions of inches it reminds me of how closely life and death are related. I’m thinking now watching two hawks circle a fraction of an inch to the left of the chickens below. Abigail Rose Cargo, 13Lexington, South Carolina