WHAT
DRAMA!
WHAT
TALENT!WAIT FOR ME!WINNERS
OCTOBER 2018 POETRY CONTEST
MysteryFirst prize 10 and under
Saanvi Chari, age 8
Avon, OH
Symmetry in Nature
Did I really just notice this?
Each side of
All the f lowers
In the front
Look the same.
All of the roses, dandelions,
And lavenders, and leaves.
I noticed this today
While I was walking down
The driveway
To take the garbage out.
I wonder what people call this?
I remember learning
About this in math!
Symmetry.
Symmetry in nature!
A line of symmetry in nature.
First prize 11 and up
Zoe Rodriguez, age 12
Waltham, MA
Lantern of the Unknown
The tiny f lame of my lantern shivers with me
as it bobs along with my small horse.
The sound of hooves in the dirt calms me as I tremble,
buried under a bundle of clothes, I look around.
The cramped trail and trees looming around me
like shadows,
ambassadors of the unknown.
Even the crickets are hushed as I look up at the sky,
blurred by a blanket of clouds.
The moon stares back down at me, only a ghostly spot
behind the veil.
The wind howls, f litting through the treetops
and whispering secret words
my ears don’t understand. The trail is dark.
My lantern is a comforting reassurance
that I won’t get lost among the
uncharted woods. The steady clomp of hooves,
the breeze through the trees, and the smell of lush
greenery almost soothes me,
as I watch the f lames shudder. But what is this?
A light of a lantern ahead, dancing in the fog
of the hidden?
Is it a comforting flame, like my own?
Or an ominous one?
Does it belong to a human?
Or a monster of the shadows,
like in the stories mother told?
The mysteries swirl in my head as I battle curiosity.
Do I turn back and head
home, where the warm f ire sits and mother’s soothing
arms await outstretched?
Or do I venture forward, toward the glowing light,
which stays bobbing in place
like a hook waiting for a helpless f ish?Second prize 10 and under
Areesha Nouman, age 10
Westlake, OH
Darkness
It stalks along the abandoned pathway,
Invisible in the black night,
Unseen to those
Who live in happiness and joy.
Not a sliver of moonlight
Is there to be seen.
The wind whistles shrill and piercing,
Like a sinister ghost,
Beckoning to join
Eternal gloom.
The rain pours down,
The drips and drops,
Falling one after another,
Never ending.
All around,
Not a single soul
Is there to be seen.
Shadows dancing along the walls,
Wolves howling up at the moonless sky.
Clouds cover the entire universe,
A lightless, an emotionless
World
Of
Darkness.45