North Country Union High School

I named my tree Elize, after the sound summer winds make in her leaves. She was planted a week after I was born and embroidered on everything I touched.
I had a cute little crib, outlined in pink lace and a thick blanket. It was wooden and old, with that wonderful oak smell. The quilt my grandma sewed for me was lavender purple, inspiration for my walls. I had three windows. Two looked out into the yard and the third, over the driveway and the dirt road that swept past our little house. My mom wanted to put my crib under the third window. However my father, sweet man, strongly persisted that no good baby is brought up looking out the window to cars zooming by on a dusty old road? No, by all the reason my parents had, they compromised to plant a tree under the window. Every fresh air babe was brought up looking at trees.

Hunting

By Lyrah Jasmine Taft
North Country Union High School, Grade 9

Blood is not a liquid.
Blood is like the flash
Of a camera
Because it stays with me
Even after I have closed my eyes.
No. Blood is not liquid.

Rain is a liquid.
Rain washes away the smell
Of my stained clothes.

Yet rain is not what
Gushes out of
Screaming children.

Curious how you can stand
So much blood.
The broken ribs,
The last breaths
Would haunt a normal soul.

Second Silver

By Lyrah Jasmine Taft
North Country Union High School, Grade 9

There were two,
One gold,
One silver.

Bitter nights,
Hard days

Plagued them.

Arms of gold
Were lighter,
But hollow.

Legs of silver
Were happy
Until they pressed
Against
Gold,

Pressed against
The cold feeling
Of
Second.

Gold.
Silver.

One better
Says us.

We compare the
Two elements.

We judge beauty
By reflection in
The sun.

The shade,
The color.

Silver, you
Are just as good.

Friends at the Park

By Lyrah Jasmine Taft
North Country Union High School, Grade 9

There was that day
In the park

The sun was hot.
My hands were cold
In the pockets of my
Giant blue jacket.

They climbed up and
Down the slide.

I watched.

Pitifully

From the wood chips
Below

By the sign that
Reminded me I needed
A mommy to play.

Or a daddy.

I had neither.

You saw that.

Your hand extended
To offer help on the stairs.
And your mommy smiled.
She asked my name
And took off my coat.

Death leaps
Over the flaws
And holds,
Possessing,
Twirling

A heart.

Death speaks
To the wind
Laughing and
Crying,
Clutching

My heart.

Cold as ice
And ice it is,
Cracked and blistered.

Every beat
A new whisper
To warm the hand of
Death.

Such tears.
They spill
And gather around the
Cloak of
Winter

The last demon I will encounter.