Emma Redden

The sign on your lawn reads ‘change’.
Nothing is more invigorating to you
than the ability to hold fast to hope.
Nothing is more powerful to you
than seeing a man stand so tall
against all that his history
reminds him of.
A man able to stare out of your television screen
and ask you to help him
be the first African American president
of the United States of America.

The sign on his lawn reads
nothing of change.
He has lived here for six generations.
Why change now?
He has done alright
to this point.

The groceries in the back of her
Hybrid are pure.
Her paper bag reads
‘no GMOs’.
Her veggie burgers and
organic carrots sit happy,
eager to be cold once again.

Your freezer is full of animals,
kept frozen from last winter,
killed, lovingly
by your own two hands.

Their school is as diverse
as the stripes on the American flag
and at the same time,
as different as the fingerprints
of those who fly it every morning.

The acceptance
set deep in the iris of your dark,
tired
eyes makes you beautiful.
You sit with dignity,
unfazed by the roughness
of the road
or the condition of the overused bus.
I sit beside you
trying my very hardest
to accept,
as well as you can.
Two bananas rest in your crooked,
sun spotted,
gentle hands.
It has been hours
and your fruit has remained
untouched.
I presume you have intentions
beyond yourself.
In my lap lay cookies,
a treat but not a luxury.
I slowing take one out of its
wrapper and offer it across the aisle.
Silently you turn toward me,
your aging face braking into a smile.
You reach out your hand,
accepting my small act of sharing.
You nod ever so slightly and I believe
we understand.

The Sun

By Emma Redden
Leland and Gray Union High School, Grade 11

The sun illuminates the lines
on your beautiful face.
They mark the day you married
your precious husband,
and the day,
twelve years later
you had to say goodbye to him.
They mark the pains and sorrows
life has crumbled in you path.
They mark the laughter that
has filled you home for
so many years.
They mark your children,
all of them,
who have gone from needing
your unrelenting care
to being the source of
strength
that keeps you going.
The ribbon that holds you to all
of us is stronger
than it ever has been before.
The ribbon that holds you together
is fraying every day,
no matter
how hard we try to
repair the edges.
You smile up at the enormous
offering of light
and a silent tear fills your eye.
Everything seems more
enchanting when you realize
that even if it rises every morning
for the rest of eternity,
you won’t be there to feel its warmth.

Nicaraguan Coffee

By Emma Redden
Leland and Gray Union High School, Grade 10

The sun sits high in the hazy sky, tanning your strong back below.
You are a farmer, a true definition of the six letter word.
You live in a home made of cinder blocks, packed mud.
You are lucky, your house is more than bound sticks.
At least concrete isn’t blown down in the winter rains.
It crumbles, but only as slowly as you do.
Your earthen walls enclose a home,
Filled with stuffed burlap sacks,
Second hand clothes, and uncomfortable beds.
At least your babies are nearby when they whimper in the night.
The outdoor bathroom is a simple relief from the
Stuffy stale air of indoors.
A black tarp surrounds a cavern in the ground
To dispose of human waste.
Over the makeshift bathroom
Stand trees, tall and proud.
They are your bread and butter,
Pan y mantequilla.
The lofty tree stands with dignity
Being sole shelter, refuge, protection
For the coffee plant below.
The bananas are still green
The coffee is still red.
Your hands and your back are still tired.
You never stop working and
Yet it still seems never to be enough.
The incredible beauty of the land
Is so harshly contrasted by the
Poverty of your life.
It is as if you were tricked,
Placed in such an idealistic landscape,
With such a demanding daily routine.
Sometimes it seems like it’s an unfair game
And sometimes it seems a gift.
Days are long
Bodies are aching
Eyes are sore
And money is so fragile
The smallest movement could
Break apart the vase of your finances.
But at least you are given the gift
Of spending those long days
In a land painted by an angelic hand.
You are a Nicaraguan farmer.

Similarity

By Emma Redden
Leland and Gray Union High School, Grade 10

Similarity
Lifetimes of milestones
Separate
Lives that are
Beginning,
Ending,
We’ve become
The same
Again.

Chernobyl: Fallen Walls

By Emma Redden
Leland and Gray Union High School, Grade 10

Death appeared in the form of ignorant minds
not taking good enough
care of the devil.
Poison rained upon your people
irrigating their fields with struggling death.
Firemen couldn’t hear screams
over the sound of crumbling steel.
Crimson flames scorched you soul
but only if the air hadn’t taken it first.
I wonder which hurt less.
When the fire fell asleep
and flesh became part of the earth,
a skeleton filled the banks of the river.
It was nothing less than a ghost,
haunting.
The devil left a footprint that will
never go away.
When spring decided to sigh warm breath,
mother’s shuttered.
Unlike the summer, the sun isn’t strong enough in the winter
to feel like flames.
Between fallen walls
innocence bloomed.
A flower was brave enough to reach for the light.
It seemed a miracle anything could grow.
Do tears make fertile soil?

Beginnings

By Emma Redden
Leland and Gray Union High School, Grade 10

The letter ‘t’ is the beginning of the first word of the story of my life, written with the same zest and passion that fills my very days.

The small diamond shaped seed is the beginning of the most precious daisy in the field.

I Live With a Bullet

By Emma Redden
Leland and Gray Union High School, Grade 10

Pray for me…
I am a child. I live in a world created for the strength of mothers, not the vulnerability of children.

Pray for me…
I am a mother. I exist everyday trying to give my child the best life possible. I worry everyday I am not doing a good enough job.
Pray for me…
I am a woman of Iraq. I live everyday under the veil of non existence. I am no different a woman than the rest of the daughters, sisters, wives, filling the streets of our world. I live with the same emotions, the same sentiment, the same zest for life. However, I live with a different tremor, different horror, different trepidation. I live with the fear that the world may find out the woman under the cloth is a fearless lion. Then the lion may die.
Pray for me…
I am Mother Earth. My body is at war. My heart, my soul, and mind, is being put to waste. I have become desolation, destruction, devastation, dilapidation, dissipation. I am afraid. I am afraid that I am no longer fearless, no longer courageous, no longer intrepid. I am afraid I am no longer my own hero. I fear becoming a ghost, a skeleton. I fear I will become a drift of dust blowing by my own being.
Pray for me…
I am an Iraqi mother holding her crying child under the protection of the tire of a tank shooting missiles killing any victim in its line of destruction.
Pray for me…
I am a mother trying to protect her baby from the cruelty of this world, from the cruelty of war. My home is in shambles. My heart is in pieces. I have no house, never mind a home. I find shelter under a tank. I find safety, no where…
Pray for me…
I live with a bullet.

Our Suffering Mother

By Emma Redden
Leland and Gray Union High School, Grade 10

Our precious ground
is melting, freezing,
dissolving, congealing.
We are the sole protagonists,
the sole antagonists.
We are the only creators,
and the only opposers.
We hold signs
to make our concern public
and yet we drive cars to that rally.
We use low energy light bulbs,

A hand is an atom of a person’s life. I stood in dumbstruck awe as I stared, my mouth presumably gaping open, at the display of an entire life in front of my eyes. The homeless man laid asleep on the sidewalk. His hands were sprawled out beside his body. The jewel before me was the most beautifully crafted piece of art my eyes had ever seen.

The Boy: Let Me Go

By Emma Redden
Leland and Gray Union High School, Grade 10

Your eyes are deep pools of love.
They sparkle when you smile,
They ignite when you laugh.

My eyes tell you secrets I am not yet ready
To divulge.

Where I'm From

By Emma Redden
Leland and Gray High School, Grade 10

When I was born, a new bud opened on the Red Maple
Sitting on top the hill
At the end of Chapin Road. I am from that tree.

On July 5th I became the first of three and the
Ninth of nineteen. As I am one of nineteen
I am also one of millions,
Of potatoes that fed my own when all they could
Claim was a dream of something different.
I am from Ireland.

When my own mother was only a hope of the future
my great grandmother was sending freedom,
to her own blood, trapped in the Hell of Germany.
Only Hell if you wore a yellow star.
I am from bravery.

Passing days in green fields of gold
I understood that Heaven was on earth.
My heaven existed in the beauty of
White snowflakes, orange leaves,
And sweet grass. Still a baby,
Encompassed in my own
Imagination, I held ants as if breathing
Could break them.
I am from the earth.
Saturday mornings at the park,
Sleeping on Daddy’s stomach.
As my thirst for life grew,
Sleeping no long became our pastime,
But repetitive conversation, Daddy’s bread,
Blocks, naughty smiles.
Only a million times I told daddy that
Mommy was night night.
I am from my mother.

Why when we are children can the contentment
Of friends be just as pleasing,
Even if they are invisible?
Eno and Nonie toke the credit and blame
For everything I couldn’t.
When Eno and Nonie were tired
Dru-dru took their place well,
Following Meemi and my naked self
In our explorations and adventures,
Ponds are very interesting.
Naked walks with the dog weren’t eternal,
But my imagination could be satisfied.
A paint brush, a crayon,
A pencil.
When my lungs were finally exhausted
Or everyone was done listening,
Art became a voice I could always find.
I am from my hands.

Discovering my need to move was a blessing
That only spring floors and wooden bars could fulill.
Nothing is more exciting than defying gravity,

Isabel

By Emma Redden
Leland and Gray Union High School, Grade 10

Sometimes, she's downstairs by herself,
Or so I had thought,
And she has conversations, dialog.

Sometimes I listen.
Wow, she has a vivid imagination.
Is it natural to talk to yourself
For such extensive amounts of time?
I look down the stairs.
She is by herself.

She comes up for dinner.
I ask her,

A Childhood Dream?

By Emma Redden
Leland and Gray High School, Grade 10

When we are little we want to have super strength.
If only we could find the strength to move.

When we are four we want super hearing
so when we draw on the walls of our house,
we can hear the conversation spoken about our
naughty habits and their consequences.

Dear Pen Pal (It wasn’t my idea to write you. It was an assignment. Don’t expect more letters),

The delicate box sits, silent, screaming, waiting. It is the color of burnt umber, coming smoothly out of the acrylic tube. The maple wood is decorated by aging dust and a dull gloss. Was the finish tenderly applied the same year Nelson Mandela was let out of jail, or the year AIDS finally had a cure? Or was it when Elvis first sang Hound Dog? What about the year Roosevelt finally left office?

I didn’t realize the detailed bone structure of a cow,
Until I see a starving one, herds of starving ones
For hours.
I just saw a dead horse.
As cows spot fields, collaged tin, cardboard, brick
And crumbling cement homes spot the country side.
We drive through a town and colorful misfit drying laundry
Hundreds of pounds of trash weave throughout red dirt
Greens shrubs, orange flowers.

When I laid on the floor of the Miami Airport
trying to find a little shut eye
music feeding into my ears, a phone at my side,
I was any other girl.
My Spanish-English dictionary proved a good pastime.
What new words could I learn between flights?
As we leave the ground my eyes linger below.
Will there be as many lights when we land?
It seems strange in the beginning.

I didn’t know what to do
When I turned away
From the ice cream
Counter
To see a mujer
Holding her small
Child
Over her shoulder
Wearing stained
Ripping clothes.
She looked at me
No words came out of her
Mouth.
Her eyed said more than
Words could ever had explained.
She wanted my ice cream,
She wanted to smallest amount
Of money
So her baby could eat that night.

Easy for You to Say

By Emma Redden
Leland and Gray Union High School, Grade 10

We read
“Don’t pay beggars.
There are places all
over where they can
go for help.”
Easy for us to say.
The mother of the boy
With the head
Of a caricature,
Needs my help,
She says.
Why would she want
My help?
Her son can get free
Help at the hospital.
It is only two hours away.

I was assigned to do some creative writing on heroes. I wrote this poem originally about Helen Keller and then realized it fit right in with my other heroes: Anne frank, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

By Emma Redden
Leland and Gray High School, Grade 9

if i close my eyes
i still feel the breeze
i still hear the birds chirp
i can still hear my mothers voice

This piece was given second place in the 2007 Farming prompt contest, an annual event. Students, teachers and farmers made the final choices.

Freisen Daughters
Emma Redden
Leland and Gray Union High School, Grade 9

The hills of Ireland are like no other. Emerald colored pastures of grass coat the rolling hills. From afar they look like patchwork quilts covering the countryside. Lush green grass signifies the fabric, sheep acting as polka dots on the green linen. Stonewalls as old as the country its self are the stitching between the polka dot squares. The safety and warmth of the country sides’ collective blanket balances out the bitterness farm life can bestow upon one. After long days of harsh work, the Irish hills are a reminder of the acrimony and beauty our world can simultaneously maintain.