This class before winter break we were looking at William Stafford’s “Traveling Through the Dark” – a poem about someone who has come across a dead deer on a narrow mountain road. He has to decide whether to push the deer into a river to keep people from hitting it and discovers that it’s pregnant. He thinks on it, then (SPOILERZ) decides to push the deer and its unborn but living fawn into the river anyway. I ask the 7th graders what they would do and many of them swear that they would be able to give the deer a roadside c-section no problem and raise the fawn to adulthood. For this workshop I asked them to write about very hard decisions they made OR to write about roadkill, as those are the main things going on in Stafford’s poem, obvi.
Mrs. Asvos
7th Grade, 2nd Period
“untitled”
John K.
I sit there
what to write
I sit there
what to choose
I sit there
writing writing what’s the point
I sit there
I’m told to choose decisions for a list
I sit there
I have 4 not 5
I sit there
The hardest of all is to choose between decisions
I sit there
I write that down.
I sit there.
The hardest decision of all is making a decision
I sit there.
“Generosity”
Yuan O.
Generosity is what Christmas is about
So I should give a present to my sister
But the present she wants is…
expensive to a person like me with no allowance but
This present is the she wanted to get since
summer!
I’d say this is a good investment…
I think…
Ah, forget it, I’ll get this money back in the
Christmas cards
This EZ-bake oven better be worth it.
“untitled”
Anya P.
I am on a swing, swinging
faster and higher with each overwhelming push.
I look over my shoulder and see the
poor.
I yearn to help and give but the
force that pushed me to and
fro hindered me.
I am still swinging.
I look and see the weak.
A fire burned in me to
live virtue and do good.
I am still swinging.
I see the power-hungry
corrupting the lives of many
and I wish to help them
so that I could help the
ones I shunned.
I am still swinging.
The vice that corrupted my very
soul turns to guilt.
I succumb to an overwhelming
force that pushes me off
the swing.
I look back, seeking the
aid of others.
They are still swinging.
Mrs. Asvos
7th Grade, 3rd Period
“Dead Skunk”
Alexandra J.
Dearest skunk,
devoted father, husband, and nocturnal mammal.
You will forever be remembered
as the brave creature
who ventured into the
highway. With its obnoxious
lights and wailing sirens and car exhaust.
only to be met with a daunting vehicle,
gliding right over your neck,
as you tried to crawl away.
“Baby Bird”
Sunny E.
Still pink and wrinkled
perched in the warmth of its nest.
Watching its siblings glide in the air with
graceful
navy wings.
Struggling to stand, it peered over.
The night,
black and bright
city lights,
cars, no monsters rumbling below.
Just one step,
just maybe these wings
won’t give out.
The baby bird swooped down from the nest,
wind whipping its frail body
down
down
down
into the gnarled jaws of the monster below.
I found the baby bird
in the alley
its wings outstretched, but
crushed. Not surrendering, but
flying to the end.
“Darn Seagulls”
anonymous
I’m a star(fish)
looking at the car
There are girls
looking for pearls
And I hear “starfish”
I hope I don’t become a “stardish”
Hey look at that seagull
I’m flying because of a pull
by the seagull, why are the girls running away
I’m blind and bleeding now in a sway
The last thing I heard was “darn seagull”
then I fly off into the land of the clouds.
