About the Young Writers Project
YWP, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, Vermont, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power and to gain confidence and skills for the workplace and life. YWP publishes about 1,000 students’ work each year here, in newspapers across Vermont, on Vermont Public Radio and in YWP’s monthly digital magazine, The Voice. Since 2006, it has offered young people a place to write, explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org, which has only one rule: Be respectful. For more information, please contact YWP executive director Geoffrey Gevalt at ggevalt@youngwritersproject.org.
This poem is written by Hannah Freedner, a sophomore who is homeschooled in Vergennes.
The Flower Thief
By Hannah Freedner
[H]e watches his victim like a tiger watches
his prey, observing its every move, waiting
for the ideal moment to strike.
He pounces and snaps its delicate neck
with one stroke, but he is full of greed and yearns
for more, and so he snaps
every surrounding neck until the earth is barren and unwanted.
He plucks and cleans each one thoroughly,
trimming broken edges
and tearing away superfluous pieces. He
places them in bottles
of blown glass with crimson rims and fuchsia bowls,
and when he is done, he carries them out into the rain
and places them on the front porch of a cedar house that
surrendered long ago. A smile plays across his lips
as he leaves behind a simple
abode that now looks wanted, encircled
with a pungent sweetness.
