By Amelia Barr
Once I thought that I was wise
I sought all the answers to life
Ages swept past my speeding clock
But I sat at my desk in strife
“Oh how my back aches with pain!”
I’d cry as I bent over books
Nose fully buried in Plato and Descartes
Scanning for truth in the nooks
300 pages for an ounce of clarity
I’d leap from my seat with joy
But that only happened every once in a while
With the work I did employ
But outside laid a world I had yet to taste
Untouched by my paper cut hands
The books I held were made from the trees
That sprouted in those foreign lands
I missed that the words were written in the skies
In the veins of the waxy leaves
Scrawled into the currents of bountiful rivers
That flow without seeking to please
As I finally stepped away from my desk
And out to the sun beamed air
My feet touched the grass of the hallowed ground
And alas, the truth was there
I realized my mistake, that my meaning was lost
Among words that had little to give
It was not the written guide to life that was true
But it was my beginning to live
By McKaine Layne
The fighting has ended,
But no one has one.
You are left with half of a heart
And the other half is with him.
The man who stole it from you is the one you trusted most.
The one who told you he loved you
The one who said he cared more than anyone.
He ran away as far as he could.
Making sure that you would not come after him or your heart.
You are left half of the person you were.
Now you have next to nothing and nowhere to turn.
You are hurt and broken beyond repair.
With nothing and no one left to pick your pieces off the ground
There is no one to build you back to what you were,
Because the man has half your heart and the other half is on the floor.
You have to be strong for yourself,
Which is impossible because you are scattered from place to place.
You are broken and hurting lying in your floor,
With no will to stand up and fight,
Because when you do it will only be half-heartedly.
By Ella Green
What do I know about this life anyway?
What does anyone know about this life?
All humanity
Is floundering, flailing flesh,
Bosoms bulging with unrest,
Nonstop scavenging and desperate searching for answers,
None of which satisfy our quaking quest.
Will anything ever quench the thirsty impulse of endless seeking,
Seeking to understand what cannot be understood,
Seeking to comprehend what is beyond our mind’s ability to comprehend,
The restless longing in human hearts to know what’s around the bend?
Tired tears dripping,
Clumsy feet tripping,
Hearts of sin weeping,
From behind, chaos creeping,
Pouncing on lives in violent attack,
In merciless, relentless wrecking wrath.
How will humankind survive the pestering plague of sin’s maniacal mace?
What is there to save us from falling into the painful, deadly trap,
The enemy’s morbid metal clasp?
God’s powerful grasp
That forever holds us fast.
By Ella Green
From the Golden Temple of the Heavens
God spoke the cathedral of the world
Into existence,
Whispering into the dark emptiness of the universe not yet created,
Speaking beauty and life
Into ex nihilo, black nothingness.
Out of nothing
Came everything.
All life,
All existence,
All beauty
Finds its inception
At the Lord’s lips.
Green grew,
Sea sprouted,
Animals came to life, birds flew,
And mountains mounted
Themselves in the earth glazed with the beautiful dew of life
Formed by His Hands.
And after the quiet stillness
Of the universe holding its breath,
God breathed Life and Light
Into the hearts of humanity,
Beginning the beautiful bond of amity
Between the Creator and His Creation.
Through the dark emptiness
Now made whole and full in His Light
Echoed the resounding words from His Mouth,
“It is good.”
By Ella Green
Memories are magic,
Joyful ones bring laughter and smiles,
And poignant ones bring tears and crying.
Some feel like a murky blur,
While others feel as pure and lucid as yesterday’s occurrences.
They open the door to the time-traveling machine
Which we step into,
Going back to the past,
Taking a bite out of the ripe fruit of remembering and sipping its sweet juice of reminiscing,
Perhaps to the trees you used to make into a home with neighborhood friends,
To the never-ending games of hide and seek,
To the mud pies and sand castles,
The time capsules you buried in your small backyard,
The waxing of Autumn leaves,
The hikes and walks and bike rides and playdates and tea parties
That brought joy so ecstatic
Or perhaps going back
To the diagnosis that was so tragic,
The long separation of loved ones that broke your heart,
The devastating loss that seemed to leave a gaping hole in your soul.
But memories are a gift,
They are a part of us,
Part of who we are.
Remembering and reminiscing
In the beauty of what your past holds
And how far you’ve come since then on the road of life
Is beautiful.
It is good.
By Ella Green
I recline in a wooden rocking chair,
Swaying in rhythmic back and forth motion
On the hill of the moon,
My rocking in sync with the dancing stars,
And my tired body is lulled to sleep in a soothing lullaby
Sung by the star’s lovely voices.
Uh-oh—
Suddenly I rock too far,
And one of the curved wood pieces gets caught in a deep crater,
Making the chair dip and tip precariously,
And then I slide off the moon’s milky surface in the rocking chair—
Down
Down
Down
I fall,
My eyes fluttering open and closed
Like a loose screen door at the mercy of a storm,
In and out of strange, confused sleep,
Plummeting into the dark obscurity,
Stuck in the ceaseless stretch of speckled space—
Until suddenly,
My body is shook wide awake
As my rocking chair reconstructs into a rocket ship,
Shooting me back down to earth
Where I find myself not rocking on the moon,
But resting in my bed,
The moon’s pale lips leaking into my room its white-watered kiss
And my crazed, restless mind locked in dazed dreamy
Bliss.
By Ella Green
I wonder,
How does a flower feel when it knows
The time has come for it to die?
It has thrived beautifully for some time
Lifting its smiling, petal-filled head to the sunshine
Then, the petals fall and wither
The flower’s smile turns to a frown,
And its tears fall as the leaves drop to the ground
Its bright, lovely colors
Fade to brown come the frost of winter
Shriveled petals replacing
The once smooth, soft petals
Its once strong stem
Becomes weak and bends itself over,
The weight of death so heavy on it
I delighted in my flowers
And told them I loved them each day
How I wish they could stay,
Live forever,
But I know they can’t.
It’s sad to see my flowers die
“I love you all,” I whisper as I say goodbye.
