Literacy Volunteers winning poems

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FARMINGTON – Literacy Volunteers recently held their 12th annual poetry contest. The contest is open to all ages and celebrates poetry month.

Beauty to Ash
By MACKENZIE SMITH

The sky was painted blue a long time ago

And the night sky glows with small a glimmer

In the day the sun gives off a warm glow

The oceans and lakes sometimes will shimmer

A bird perches on the branch of a tree

it looks at the big wonders of the world,

thinks how lucky he is to see such beauty

The butterflies laughed as they looped and swirled

As they so did they wind carried them along

A young, small fox went pouncing through a field

while the wind and the river sing a song

And the broken tree is finally healed

this world was created to be turned to ash.

 

Genesis
By LYDIA FERNANDES

Do you remember?
Tiny hands, lineless
Big eyes, blind.
Hope hatchling incubated with

Yearning.

Tremulous heart beating
Crunch
Caging bones flinch
Smears of red under love

Hate.

Windows turned inward
Kaleidoscopes of blue
Down weighted thick membrane
a leech. a whale.
Cyclical, lingering, clinging
A layer of skin
that won’t say goodbye

Bubbling flesh
Frigid heat
Branding that never

I remember.

Found
By IMANI CHILCOTE-JOOF

Wintertime, cold and dreary

Everything is still and quiet

Everyone around is weary

For someone found in the morning,

That someone being washed ashore

All this sadness, with no warning,

Many hearts, bleak and sore

For many people cried and dread

The chilling fact has come so soon

That that someone they saw was dead

That awful sight that afternoon

Seeing that someone there

Is something none of them could bear.

Friday, January 20, 2017, 11:41 a.m.
By HEATHER BROWN

I woke up today
to a realization.
I am patriotic.

Not the patriotism of
monster trucks and colossal
flags snapping behind smoke-
belching stacks and the chants of
USA! USA! Might
makes right.

Why would patriotism belong to
the daughter of a single
mother, striving to wrench
a future out of
AFDC and food stamps
by bootstraps of my own making, but I

woke up and realized
I have a difficult patriotism.
An Emma Lazarus patriotism, requiring
a lamp, a little light of mine.
Let it shine.

Let it shine. My patriotism asks not
why others cannot make it,
and asks instead
why did I?

My patriotism is the promise
that an imperfect union can be
shaped by an imperfect woman
who wants others to have
the same chance she did, or even more.

A tempest-tossed patriotism, resisting
the siren song of alternative facts,
working into reality the promise
of our national mythology.

I woke up today
to a difficult patriotism and
a realization. I am not the first.
I am not alone.

Ode to Spring
By ELIZABETH SCHICHE

Oh how we have waited for thee’s beauty
We have waited for thee to come again
From the cold of nights that made me moody
We have waited for thee to come regain
The earth from the glistening of the snow
Oh how we have missed the colorful world
We waited for the long days to grow
The way you have made the days spin and twirl
Thee have brought the trees back to life once more
To see the blossom of flowers grow forth
To seeing the birds come back with a roar
Oh how they have missed the sun and the warmth
We have waited for thee to come around
Oh how we have missed the soggy ground.

Pine Silence
By GABRIELLA LOUISE DOYON

My heart dropped my stomach and my hands went shaky.

My parents were fighting again, I was frozen.

I knew what I had to do, I had to go to the woods.

I grabbed my woods backpack, it had everything I would  need,

If I was going to be out there for a while.

And I hopped out of the window from my bedroom.

I started sprinting to my wood shelter house I had built out of old plywood.

I opened it up and looked to see how much food I had left from the last time I was here.

I had a can of soup, some crackers and some hot dogs, that was enough for three days.

The sun was going down and I pulled my sleeping bag out and went to bed.

Stomp stomp I figured it was a bear or deer that was just walking by that morning.

I peeked out the window, it turned out to be a game warden.

I was scared I hid down by my sleeping bag

He didn’t see me, he just walked by me.

I had a rational fear of game wardens.

My dad has gotten in trouble with them before.

Just then my can of soup fell on a rock with a loud bang.

He turned around and started walking toward me.

He knocked at the door and said “hello?”.

I turned around and peeped “hi.”

He asked where my parents were.

I said that they were yelling at each other.

He said to hop in his truck so I did.

He made a strange call. I only heard the words kid and station.

Then he took me to the game warden station.

Then some guy named Chris took me to an orphanage.

He told me that I wasn’t in a safe home and I will be put in foster care.

He also told me what he was and about his job and I knew that this is what I wanted to be.

I was so miserable in my foster home.

Then my foster parents took me to the orphanage.

I was told I was going to be adopted, I asked who it was.

Then Chris walked in and I started to cry. I was so happy.

He introduced me to his family and the other game wardens he worked with.

Now today two years later I’m happy and free and I go to the woods for joy not pain.

Pregnancy After Loss isn’t Easy
By ELIZABETH BEAUDETTE

It’s seeing   the two   pink lines   and getting
Scared, not excited.

It’s the telling people and then getting Scared to
have to tell them you lost it.

It’s calling   the doctors   to set up appointment and
then getting Scared you won’t make it.

It’s getting to the appointment and getting Scared they’re
Going to tell you baby isn’t there.

It’s waiting for the HCG results to come back.

It’s the having to go back to get them retested   and to
be Scared that they decreased

It’s waiting for the ultrasound   to be Scared to
not make it.

It’s the having to go to the bathroom and checking to
make sure there’s no Blood.

It’s every little Cramp or Pain thinking it’s not Good.

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