Checkpoint #1

At this point, I planned to have have two unpolished poems, and I do, so I'm right on track. Since the next two classes are going to be dedicated to workshops, I'm going to take that time to gather feedback and new ideas, and then by the next checkpoint I'd like to have these poems completely polished, as well as two new poems. It just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and...

#1

In the desert heat
on the other side of the country
there’s a certain type of tree that only scatters its seeds
after it’s been through hell.
And over thousands of years, it’s been burned more than once
and that’s why it’s alive.

It’s called a cypress,
and it’s one of the few natural organisms
that has the ability to take devastation
and convert it into life.

The cypress is a conifer,
an evergreen,
but it doesn’t take its name for granted
because it knows the struggle it must undergo
before it can thrive.
The only time it drops its seeds
is when wildfires burn so hot that its cones explode,
sending bundles of potential hurling into the smoke.
And you’d think they have no chance,
but when the saplings emerge,
they rise from the ashes
and grow
patiently awaiting the spark that will ignite a generation.

We’ve got our own little forest.
It’s called earth,
and we want it to be evergreen and everblue
but we’re running out of hope.
The only time we have left to regenerate
is now
and there’s hate burning so hot
that if we don’t let go soon,
it will consume us and our future.

We need to re-grow.
Sprout from the ashes like cypresses after the flames;
spread forgiveness like seeds bursting from a singed shell;
turn anger like sunlight into positive energy;
reach like we’ve got branches that can bridge the gap between heaven and earth,
and forget that there was ever anything in between.


#2

I slept in that morning
four days after my birthday,
stuck home with a sick stomach.
The second week of sixth grade
and already I was missing class.
I was eleven.
It was 9:05 when I opened my eyes
to sun streaming through the blinds
so bright, it was nauseating, like,
“Wake up, world. This isn’t right.”

He slept in too.
His girls were up and off to school before he even knew
he should have kept them home.
Yeah, they’re all okay,
and he still has tomorrow,
but like so many others,
all he wanted was to wake up to yesterday.
All he wanted was his smooth-sailing,
pat-on-the-back-with-the-stamp-of-approval
business as usual,
but too late for regrets.
He had a plane to catch
and he missed it,
only to be awaken by a silence more deafening than gunshots
instead of his alarm clock.
And he swore he was dreaming a little bit more
when every channel he tried showed the same footage
over and over and over and …

We always remember the details on those days,
maybe because times, dates, and places
are easier on our hearts than memories of things like
three thousand souls rising with the smoke
where hate burned so hot
that even the coldest, most bitter tears can’t ease the burn
six years later.

So where do we go?
We’ve got scars that go deeper than the sea that divides us
and an undefined grudge that will transcend generations.
We’re confused;
we’ve got nothing but the anger they left behind
but no constructive way to use it
without hurting someone else.

Too many are dead at the hands of hate,
thousands more for every one of the three thousand killed in the first place,
and it was not their time to go.
They were dreamers
with plans to make their dreams come true,
space for change but not for failure.
Beggar, blue-collar, high roller,
accomplishments or none,
they knew they’d make it to the headlines someday,
and they did
for all the wrong reasons.

So who’s going to pay?
Hammurabi wrote that if a crime led to the loss of life or limb,
the accused should have his hands cut off.
Today we’d rather kill with kindness
than cut hate off at the wrists
And each casualty is just another slap in the face.
There’s a problem, and the only way to fix it is by looking it the eye.
We’re run out of time to turn the other cheek,
we can’t look away like, “We never saw this coming.”
We should have.
It’s times like these time and time again.