YWP: 'Sealed for delivery'

[Y]oung Writers Project, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power, and to gain confidence and skills for school, the workplace and life.

Check out the most recent issue of The Voice, Young Writers Project’s monthly digital magazine. Click here.

Each week, VTDigger features a writing submission – an essay, poem, fiction or nonfiction – accompanied by a photo or illustration from Young Writers Project. 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, share their photos, art, audio and video, and to explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org. For more information, please contact Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org.

Photo of the week by Lauren McCabe, 14, of South Burlington/YWP Media Library

In the November 1995 issue of “Inc. Technology,” Kurt Vonnegut recounts a recent leisurely stroll about town on his way to mail a letter. It is not the most efficient way to mail his letter, certainly, but the most stimulating: “I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around.” Weybridge poet Addison Schnoor, featured this week, has been inspired by the very same deceptively mundane task, using the excuse of a short trip to the mailbox to soak in the night’s essence.

Sealed for delivery

By Addison Schnoor, 14, of Weybridge

I step through the door
into the dark of the night’s chill.
My feet crunch when they meet
the soft gravel of the driveway.

As I walk, my fingers trace
the edges of the envelope I hold
in my right hand.
The wind swirls quietly through my hair.

Out of curiosity, I let my eyes
climb the treetops to the darkened sky,
where a smattering of shining stars
are misted, pricking through the navy blue canvas.

The blinking red light of a plane
throbs as it inches across the sky,
closing in on its destination.
An owl hoots from somewhere deep in the woods.

My feet hit pavement and
I’ve suddenly reached
the end of the driveway.
The stars shine bright enough to illuminate the yellow lines.

I cross in four strides
and walk up to the mailbox,
where I slip my envelope inside,
sealed for delivery.

As I pop the red flag up,
headlights shine against
the skinny black wires
that hide during the day against the trees.

I cross the street to my driveway,
and as I look back,
a small car drives by,
its headlights beaming through the night.

Whispers of wind follow it
as it is lost from my view.
When my feet have carried me to the door,
I am filled with longing – I have reached the end.