Student Poetry:Martin Conte, English Teacher, recently shared this poem written by an AP Literature student who would like to remain anonymous: In Maine the mornings come rainy or salted It's never up to me. Fog lifting off the Benjamin River Nature waking up to play As a kid I believed the rocks at Dodges Wharf were sleeping mermaids and if a fluttering, chirping Magpie and I waited long enough basking on their warm scales they might rise up and carry me somewhere farther than I could ever imagine Now the spruce trees hold their breath all winter. A grey squirrel used to scatter the yard with its bright, nervous movements and contagious chitter-chatter Now it moves along the property lines like the deer that are too nervous to come close Some mornings it is still quick and certain with its tail high, leaping across the pines And other days it lingers on the paths as if the world has become too wide for its eyes It tells me sometimes when the sun has set and the ground has cooled that it hates us. And it hates me. how it feels so different Still, it wakes up the next day and appears from its hole chitter-chattering again. Confusing, really, how much these creatures can change. Is this squirrel really like me? Will I be scrambling to find my way around this world like him? I wish he could tell me. And yet, spring comes again. I light the candles We pass the bread, still steaming from the oven Someone tells a story half-right. I try to live here in these bittersweet moments, the metal roof slumping with snow dripping away. Though parts of me keep wandering those old back trails overgrown with sweet fern where the squirrel and his father would roam. Now searching desperately for nature's trinkets we used to gather before we knew how quickly the seasons could change. I used to want to mimic the squirrel in a costume three sizes too big with a poofy little tail But is that who I really want to be anymore?
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