Young Writers Project is a creative, online community of teen writers and visual artists that started in Burlington in 2006. Each week, VTDigger publishes the writing and art of young Vermonters who post their work on youngwritersproject.org, a free, interactive website for youth, ages 13-19. To find out more, please go to youngwritersproject.org or contact Executive Director Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org; (802) 324-9538.
Wake up, it’s spring! Time to pack away the down duvet holding the last of the April chill and kneel to catch the scent of those emerging backyard blooms — there’s a whole other world rising up down there! This week’s featured poet, Sawyer Fellows of East Burke, puts a magnifying glass to the season’s miniature societies of flora and fauna hustling and bustling beneath our feet.
Faith in nature (roaring garden)
By Sawyer Fellows, 17, of East Burke
The flapper lilies sway their cupped dresses
while the trumpeting snapdragons
play their sweet jazz for the garden.
Sniff the magenta echinacea’s dewy scent,
dripping sweat after dancing in the sun!
The insects crawl into the speakeasies
littered around the great, moss-guarded wall.
They get drunk off the delectable pollen
bootlegged across the vast, floral city.
The bees invest in rising honey stocks.
The busy middle class works round the clock
to boom their bull markets after the tirades,
after the harsh war against humankind.
The citizens know not of their future:
of the next duel across the pond or the
creation of the great mass destroyer.
Only the far extension of the olive branch
could settle this anxious time of concern.
