21. Beginning

Observing in Detail: An Artist's Beginnings

By Melissa Soule
Leland and Gray Union High School, Grade 9

Time creeps by, each tranquil moment
Carving a deep notch in passing life;
Like masterful hands divining a wooden face,
Unveiling an orange sky by pulling back the cloudy blue peel.

The water, timelessly aged upon the earth,

Remember

By Melissa Soule
Leland and Gray Union High School, Grade 9

This is a found poem, with the first two lines an excerpt from Joy Harjo's " Remember". Born May 9, 1951 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Joy Harjo is an enrolled member of the Muscogee tribe . She is now working as an writer and instrumentalist, performing her own music and teaching at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

Beginning

By Miles Latham
Hartford Memorial Middle School, Grade 8

Was there ever a beginning of time?
Perhaps our universe has existed forever.
Maybe the concept of time as we know it is eternal,
Going on ceaselessly,
With no end in sight:
From the past and into the future.
The present may be a barely perceptual moment
On the path of perpetuity.

In the Beginning

By Abby Chretien
Hartford Memorial Middle School, Grade 8

In the beginning
Everything was great.
It felt amazing to like someone who
Seemed to like me back.
You made me laugh
On those terrible days that made me cry,
And you always made me feel good about myself
Because you knew how I really felt.
But in the end
The secrets,
Laughter,

Sometimes you get new beginnings.
Sometimes you don’t.
Once you start something, it’s hard to stop.
Sometimes if you stop something, it’s hard to start.
New beginnings is what helps us all out,
But when you cut off yourself that bad, you don’t get a new beginning.
A second chance.

There’s nothing left of you,

The beginning of the End

By Rebecca White
Hartford Memorial Middle School, Grade 8

The way I see you
standing over
Me
I know it’s just the
beginning.

The air goes cold and
my blood beats
faster.

Pumping through me like
fire through
a frozen world.

You scream and yell,
calling me those
hideous names.

Saying I am useless,
reckless,
nothing but a flea to you.

Beginning

By Jenn Clark
Hartford Memorial Middle School, Grade 8

Everything has a beginning.
Life, stories, school, love.
But sadly, everything has an end, too.
I could do with everything ending at some point,
Everything except love, that is.
I don’t think I could live without the smiles,
Butterflies, hugs, and kisses.
Right now in my life I could have fallen for anybody

It all began with just one color,
Just one stroke,
One blank canvas,
On the large concrete floor.
It all started with just one big room,
One small person with a dream,
Just one stroke.
It all began with just one color,
Eventually it made a masterpiece.
It made an artwork.

The moment they shoved me against the brick wall, is the moment I realized these gang members aren’t really my friends. I was beginning to realize my mistake. My mother did tell me, “Jess! That Sheryl girl ain’t your friend! Jess! Jessica?! Are you listening?”

Of course, I wasn’t.

I should have been.

The beginning of time.
When there were dinosaurs and creatures,
on the earth.

The beginning of life.
When the apes evolved,
into cave men.

The beginning of generations.
When the person and another person,
make children.

The beginning of technology.
When a person made a light bulb.

The beginning of history.
When people created important
history.

In the Beginning

By Patric Roberts
Hartford Memorial Middle School, Grade 7

The beginning of me getting my fishing pole was great. It has caught many fish and it does not bend too much, but it’s not that stiff either. I hope it will last me forever and I will never have to have another beginning because I love that fishing pole. It is a very expensive pole, too. It’s worth about $300. I will never have another beginning like that again.

In the beginning there were two. Two dreams but only one will prevail. One shall win and one shall lose. That is how the game works.
It has never been any other way and never will be any other way. Both people trying their hardest but for one that just isn’t good enough.

I don’t really remember the beginning of my life, probably because I was only an infant way back then. When you are that young, I don’t think that you are supposed to remember much of anything at all. If you could, then I think that all of the babies in the world would be a lot smarter than they are right now including me.

The end is near but it is only the beginning. The end of an old life and the beginning of a new. The chance to start fresh, to be reborn. When you live a harsh life and you are locked and boxed in, you forget what it’s like to be free, to live. You forget about everything happy such as birthdays, family, friends, and all other happy things.

I misunderstand things and the beginning of my life I can remember so clearly. Maybe they didn’t mean it. But up until I was eight, I did believe it.

Beginning

By Alexis Baun
Hartford Memorial Middle School, Grade 7

In the beginning you were growing,
Like all babies do.
Inside mamma’s tummy,
I loved you.

In the beginning I was excited
To have a sibling,
Inside mamma’s tummy
I loved you.

In the beginning I was wondering,
What you would be like?
Inside mamma’s tummy,
I loved you.

Then you came all small and happy

Let's start it over
We can begin something new
A new beginning

A new beginning
A chance for a new outlook
A new life begins

Start

By Michelle Ballou
Woodstock Union High School, Grade 10

START
I messed up.
So did you.
I tried to fix it,
But no band-aid could mend this horrible wound.

You stopped talking,
I was miserable.
You tried to fix it,
I could not forgive the pain you put me through.

They were sad,
We were not the same.
They tried to fix us,

Beginning

By Misha Kydd
Mount Mansfield Union High School, Grade 9

A ripple of music
Waves across the room,
Slamming her ears
And causing her head
To snap back,
Involuntarily.
It's too much,
Obnoxious and pushy.

Bobbing heads shuffle
To songs
She's never heard of,
And never wants to hear
Again.
All she wants
Is to be gone,
There are too many voices,
And too many faces,

Alas, 5th Grade

By Cheshta Singh
Albert D. Lawton Intermediate School, Grade 7

(2 years ago)....
Finally, alas it was the first day of 5th Grade.

A New Beginning

By Mikenzie Irish
Monkton Central School, Grade 5

Beep! Beep! Beep!*Groan!* “Who reset my alarm clock?! Marvin?” I open my eyes. It wasn’t my alarm clock beeping. It was the smoke detector.
“EVERYBODY OUT NOW!” I hear my Dad scream. I was up fast as lightning. I race to my dresser.

Beginning

By Kyle Messier
Fairfield Center School, Grade 8

Here I sit
Thinking of a poem
Where to begin?
“Once upon a time…”
No, too cheesy
“A long time ago
In a galaxy
far, far away…”
No,
Someone already used that
“To Be, or not to Be…”
Not again!
Go to think,
What is the perfect beginning
for a poem?
That’s it!
“Here I sit…”

A New Life

By Julie Curran
Main Street Middle School, Grade 7

I start down an
unfamiliar hall.
Faces
I don’t recognize
milling around me
Everything
seems
so weird.
Eyes
staring me
down
I don’t know
what to think.
Room 3.
My homeroom.
I open
the door,
And begin
My New Life.

Innocent Beginning

By Courtney Perry
Bellows Falls Union High School, Grade 9

“For every new beginning,
There must be an end,
This is inevitable
Though I do not know exactly when,
I do know that it will happen someday, somehow
This beginning will end
I just don’t yet know how.”

You believe so completely
In the words that you say,
I’ve never seen anyone

Beginnings

By Emma Redden
Leland and Gray Union High School, Grade 10

The letter ‘t’ is the beginning of the first word of the story of my life, written with the same zest and passion that fills my very days.

The small diamond shaped seed is the beginning of the most precious daisy in the field.

By Caralie Panton
Mt. Abraham Union High School

The Story of a Miracle

By Kayla Gilding
Rick Marcotte Central School, Grade 5

For nine long months I’ve waited, watched him grow, seen him move and felt his kicks. Now that I’m down to the final moments, it seems days have passed. I wait for a miracle to happen, the miracle of life.

She is the reflecting glare off the window. Blocking my view to the mountains, my eyes want so desperately to climb. Instead my eyes have to rest on her livid face. Whose hazy, sore-red eyes stab back accusations. That face stained with dried up tear paths. I can’t decide if they are from internal-laughter or saddened betrayal.