this i know (a list poem)

  1. i do not believe in miracles.
  2. i encourage people to be optimistic. you never know what lies ahead.
  3. i am nearly thirteen years old and adults tell me every day i was born to be a poet. i guess i didn't have time to choose.
  4. somebody writes all the fortune cookies.
  5. i wonder what they think about when they go to sleep, when they wake up. i wonder if they taste the future on the wind.
  6. i write poetry in purple pen and when it runs out of ink i use blue and when that too recedes into nothingness i suppose i'll have to stop altogether.
  7. poets contain all the secrets to the universe in their left pinky finger, the one that drags softly across the page. it comes natural & crooked like something as yet unformed.
  8. alliteration is the enemy of springtime rain.
  9. i wonder if it's god.
  10. if you run headlong into the meadows in late july beware of faeries lurking in the long grass. they give you nectar from the intoxicated bees and you may never come out alive.
  11. there is something terribly appealing about a full choir, dressed entirely in black and white. the sound they make is like when hummingbirds arise.
  12. i wonder what moses thought when the sea at first did not part. i would have fallen upon my knees, begging despite all heroic claims, and every ounce of faith in me would have turned at once to lead.
  13. actually upon reflection i would not have been moses at all.
  14. i write my name on both sides of the worksheet i am given in class, both places where it says NAME: DATE: as if to prove my existence not once but twice.
  15. i absolutely believe in miracles.
  16. thunderstorms on tin roofs at camp are the secret lullaby of nature - i am a small thing in a steadily rattling world & my only option is to go along.
  17. the best friends are the ones you can lay on the trampoline with in the growing dark and not have to worry about what happens if it rains.
  18. and also the ones you roll down hills with in the first heat of spring, shrieking & tumbling headfirst into the green.
  19. i use the same words every time i write a poem because at some point the dictionary will end and i can't bear the thought of running out.
  20. rey in spanish means king & the only metaphors i can think of for that go something along the lines of sunshine, brightness, golden ray. though i know kings make everything take the sharp black ways.
  21. and the only thing i know for certain is that i know nothing
  22. & that if we're looking for anything to change, 
    we can start simply by saying today.

Posted in response to the challenge This I Know.

image of green lilac bushes with white lilac flowers standing against a bright blue sky

OverTheRainbow

VT

12 years old

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