Young Writers Project is a creative online community of teen writers, photographers and artists, which has been based in Vermont since 2006. Each week, VTDigger features the writing and art of young Vermonters who publish their work on youngwritersproject.org, a free, interactive website for 12- to 18-year-olds. To find out more, visit youngwritersproject.org, or contact Executive Director Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org and 802-324-9538.
Our Mother Earth is the ultimate provider: She gives us the trees we use to build our shelters, the water we drink and bathe ourselves with, the green flora we eat for nourishment and the furry fauna we make lifelong friends of. This week’s featured poet, Cynder Malin-Stremlau of Sharon, writes an ode to Mother Nature’s wide embrace throughout the cycle of life, from the cradle one is raised in to the earth they come to rest in.
My mother: the Earth
Cynder Malin-Stremlau, 14, Sharon
I was born in the morning,
when the wind’s gentle hands
would fly past me, laughing,
should we run through the land.
I was born as the birds were,
under the eaves
of a soothing huckleberry
with dancing young leaves.
I was raised in a cradle
of valleys and hills,
of floating bark-boats
on old river mills.
I was raised as my sister was,
on hot soup and hot teas,
on love everlasting,
on sweet gifts from the bees.
I have died in the evening,
though death shall not leave me alone.
I sleep in my Mother’s warm embrace,
even as bones.