"XIII" poem by Andrew Larsen

Students write a poem inspired by the theme "Fall" at The Spark's October Poetry Night at Venture on King. The mentor text for the October Poetry Night was "Samhain" by Annie Finch, a poem about autumn, a time when "we who die ourselves can peel / back another kind of veil / that hangs among us like thick smoke."

XIII

By Andrew Larsen

Winter

Strident, stark, still, cold.

A wonderland of white canvases, waiting to be found

with sharp points and snow angels.

Gale-force winds blast the skeletal slope with powder.

The white rabbit finds solace.

Spring

The white rabbit is ecstatic.

Here come the leaves, bountiful, beautiful, bustling.

The air remains cold, but our world grows nonetheless.

The flowers fear their buds, and call to the bees to feed.

Summer

The flower is trampled by running feet.

The grass turns yellow-gold. A time of freedom, for some.

Friends make. A clubhouse is built.

The place to be! Packed with excited energy.

Fall

The clubhouse is abandoned, the friends' exchanged

left only to the recesses of memory.

The leaves explode in color, unmuted.

The rabbit tentatively emerges. The

leaves keep falling, a crunchy blanket across the field.

Winter

The leaves are buried. The rabbit returns.

Begin again.