These four years are very complicated
yet we cannot escape them for we are mated
so just hop on board and join the ride
just remember that when lost the answers are inside
You will have friends and you will have foes
don't worry that is just the way it goes
but no matter what happens treat people with respect
remember to forgive quickly and be tentative to reject
You will be tested on your personal character
it will be hard and sometimes seem unfair
but in tough times just remember who you are
and trust me my friends that you will go far
You will have stress if balancing a sport, school, maybe even band
at times it will seem that it is more than you can stand
but remember that you are surrounded by people that care
and will help you and make sure that you get there
You will have an easier time if you write out your goal
at first it might just seem like a bunch of bull
but if you know what achievement you are striving for
you are more likely to achieve and maybe even more
You will be tempted to change so that you can fit in
but let me tell you if you do that you will not win
so stay yourself and you will find a true friend
and no matter what happens you will win in the end
You should not think that these years are so bad
for there are many great moments waiting to be had
these are some of the happiest and best times of our lives
just take the advice given for it is how one survives
You do not have to listen to what I have to say
for I am more than sure you will find your own way
but at least listen to this: I might be fool
but guess what? I finished high school
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Still Memory
Still Memory by Mary Karr
The dream was so deep
the bed came unroped from its moorings,
drifted upstream till it found my old notch
in the house I grew up in,
then it locked in place.
A light in the hall-
my father in the doorway, not dead,
just home from the graveyard shift
smelling of crude oil and solvent.
In the kitchen, Mother rummages through silver
while the boiled water poured
in the battered old drip pot
unleashes coffee's smokey odor.
Outside, the mimosa frond, closed all night,
open their narrows valleys for dew.
Around us, the town is just growing animate,
its pulleys and levers set in motion.
My house starts to throb in its old socket.
My twelve-year-old sister steps fast
because te bathroom tiles
are cold and we have no heat other
than what our bodies can carry.
My parents are not yet born each
into a small urn of ash.
My ten-year old hand reaches
for a pen to record it all
as would become long habit.
So with this poem I didn't really understand it until I learned the background information on the author. After learned about her the meaning of the poem was pretty straight forward.
The different parts of the poem represented many different memories of the people in her life.
So "my father in the doorway, not dead,
just home from the graveyard shift
smelling of oil and solvent." just showed the image of the author's father in her memories. She did the same with her mother:
"In the kitchen, Mother rummages through silver
while the boiled water poured
in the battered old drip pot".
In the last stanza she writes:
"My ten-year-old hand reaches
for a pen to record it all
as would become long habit." So during the classes discussion we learned that she had started writing about that age.
The dream was so deep
the bed came unroped from its moorings,
drifted upstream till it found my old notch
in the house I grew up in,
then it locked in place.
A light in the hall-
my father in the doorway, not dead,
just home from the graveyard shift
smelling of crude oil and solvent.
In the kitchen, Mother rummages through silver
while the boiled water poured
in the battered old drip pot
unleashes coffee's smokey odor.
Outside, the mimosa frond, closed all night,
open their narrows valleys for dew.
Around us, the town is just growing animate,
its pulleys and levers set in motion.
My house starts to throb in its old socket.
My twelve-year-old sister steps fast
because te bathroom tiles
are cold and we have no heat other
than what our bodies can carry.
My parents are not yet born each
into a small urn of ash.
My ten-year old hand reaches
for a pen to record it all
as would become long habit.
So with this poem I didn't really understand it until I learned the background information on the author. After learned about her the meaning of the poem was pretty straight forward.
The different parts of the poem represented many different memories of the people in her life.
So "my father in the doorway, not dead,
just home from the graveyard shift
smelling of oil and solvent." just showed the image of the author's father in her memories. She did the same with her mother:
"In the kitchen, Mother rummages through silver
while the boiled water poured
in the battered old drip pot".
In the last stanza she writes:
"My ten-year-old hand reaches
for a pen to record it all
as would become long habit." So during the classes discussion we learned that she had started writing about that age.
To Myself
To Myself by W.S. Merwin
Even when I forget you
I go looking for you
I believe I would know you
I keep remembering you
sometimes long ago but then
other times I am sure you
were here a moment before
and the air is still alive
around where you were and I
think then I can recognize
you who are always the same
who pretend to be time but
you are not time and who speak
in the words but you are not
what they say you who are not
lost when I do nit find you
When I read this poem I thought of my childhood and how life is changing for me. I am going off to college and will be starting my life. I feel like this poem is talking about a lost childhood in a way.
"Even when I forget you
I go on looking for you"
So even when we forget our childhood we still go looking for it. I thought that the reason we look for it is because our childhood has helped make us who we are so when we are stuck we look to what we have learned in the past to get unstuck.
"other times I am sure you
were here a moment before
and the air is still alive
around where you were"
This made me think of a moment or event that triggers a memory in your past.
"and you who are not
lost when I do not find you"
So even when we can't find our past it is not lost; it will always be a part of us for ass long as we live.
Even when I forget you
I go looking for you
I believe I would know you
I keep remembering you
sometimes long ago but then
other times I am sure you
were here a moment before
and the air is still alive
around where you were and I
think then I can recognize
you who are always the same
who pretend to be time but
you are not time and who speak
in the words but you are not
what they say you who are not
lost when I do nit find you
When I read this poem I thought of my childhood and how life is changing for me. I am going off to college and will be starting my life. I feel like this poem is talking about a lost childhood in a way.
"Even when I forget you
I go on looking for you"
So even when we forget our childhood we still go looking for it. I thought that the reason we look for it is because our childhood has helped make us who we are so when we are stuck we look to what we have learned in the past to get unstuck.
"other times I am sure you
were here a moment before
and the air is still alive
around where you were"
This made me think of a moment or event that triggers a memory in your past.
"and you who are not
lost when I do not find you"
So even when we can't find our past it is not lost; it will always be a part of us for ass long as we live.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Lost Brother
Lost Brother by Stanley Moss
I knew that tree was my lost brother
when I heard he was cut down
at four thousand eight hundred sixty-two years;
I know we had the same mother.
His death pained me. I made up a story.
I realized, when I saw his photograph,
he was an evergreen , a bristlecone like me,
who had lived from an early age
with a certain amount of dieback,
at impossible locations, at elevations
over ten thousand feet in extreme weather.
His company: other conifers,
the rosy finch, the rock wren, the raven and clouds,
blue and sliver insects the fed mostly off each other.
Some years bighorn sheep visited in summer -
he was entertained by red bats, black-tailed jackrabbits,
horned lizards, the creatures old and young he sheltered.
Beside him in the shade, pink mountain pennyroyal -
to his south, white angelica.
I am prepared to live as long as he did
(it would please our mother),
live with clouds and those I love
suffering with God.
Sooner or later, some bag of wind will cut me down.
When I read this poem i didn't really know what to think because I didn't whether or not it was really talking about trees. But after reading it a couple of times I sort of thought of mother nature and the trees and how they are getting cut down faster and faster.
The line "I am prepared to live ass long ass he did (it would please our mother)" made me think of how mother nature would be happy if her trees would stop being cut down. Then "he was entertained by red bats, black-tailed jackrabbits, horned lizards, the creatures old and young he sheltered." This made me think of all the animals that lose their homes when forests get cut down.
The last line is the one that confused me the most "Sooner or later, some bag of wind will cut me down." This was confusing for because I don't know if the poet meant that wind would push it down or it was get cut down by a human.
I knew that tree was my lost brother
when I heard he was cut down
at four thousand eight hundred sixty-two years;
I know we had the same mother.
His death pained me. I made up a story.
I realized, when I saw his photograph,
he was an evergreen , a bristlecone like me,
who had lived from an early age
with a certain amount of dieback,
at impossible locations, at elevations
over ten thousand feet in extreme weather.
His company: other conifers,
the rosy finch, the rock wren, the raven and clouds,
blue and sliver insects the fed mostly off each other.
Some years bighorn sheep visited in summer -
he was entertained by red bats, black-tailed jackrabbits,
horned lizards, the creatures old and young he sheltered.
Beside him in the shade, pink mountain pennyroyal -
to his south, white angelica.
I am prepared to live as long as he did
(it would please our mother),
live with clouds and those I love
suffering with God.
Sooner or later, some bag of wind will cut me down.
When I read this poem i didn't really know what to think because I didn't whether or not it was really talking about trees. But after reading it a couple of times I sort of thought of mother nature and the trees and how they are getting cut down faster and faster.
The line "I am prepared to live ass long ass he did (it would please our mother)" made me think of how mother nature would be happy if her trees would stop being cut down. Then "he was entertained by red bats, black-tailed jackrabbits, horned lizards, the creatures old and young he sheltered." This made me think of all the animals that lose their homes when forests get cut down.
The last line is the one that confused me the most "Sooner or later, some bag of wind will cut me down." This was confusing for because I don't know if the poet meant that wind would push it down or it was get cut down by a human.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Mr. Fear
Mr. Fear by Lawrence Raab
He follows us, he keeps track.
Each day his lists are longer.
Here, death. And here,
something like it.
Mr. Fear, we say in our dreams
what do you have for me tonight?
And he looks through his sack,
his black sack of troubles.
Maybe he smiles when he finds
the right on. Maybe he's sorry.
Tell me, Mr. Fear,
what must i carry
away from your dream.
Make it small, please
Let it fit in my pocket,
let it fall through
the hole in my pocket.
Fear, let me have
a small brown bat
and a purse full of crickets
like the ones that i heard
singing last night
out there in the stubbly field
before I slept, and met you.
When we read this in class I thought that it was talking about dreams or nightmares and how sometimes we wonder what kind of dreams we are going to have that night. Whether it is a nightmare or a wonderful dream. We can only hope that our dreams are not filled with death and major fears. We can only ask for crickets and small brown bats before we fall asleep because we are not in control of how how fear effects our dreams.
"He follows us, he keeps track." This line i felt like it was saying that we can not escape from our fears because it is constantly following us and keeping track. "Each day his lists are longer." While he follows us he learns more about us and what our fears our. "Mr. Fear, we say in our dreams what do you have or me tonight?" So now fear comes to us in our sleep.
What I mostly got from this poem is that we can not escape our fears not even in our dreams. So all we can do is live with what we hand we are dealt and make the best out of it and live to overcome all of our fears.
I noticed that sentences were cut off in the middle and made into a new stanza and for me that made me think about what was coming next.
He follows us, he keeps track.
Each day his lists are longer.
Here, death. And here,
something like it.
Mr. Fear, we say in our dreams
what do you have for me tonight?
And he looks through his sack,
his black sack of troubles.
Maybe he smiles when he finds
the right on. Maybe he's sorry.
Tell me, Mr. Fear,
what must i carry
away from your dream.
Make it small, please
Let it fit in my pocket,
let it fall through
the hole in my pocket.
Fear, let me have
a small brown bat
and a purse full of crickets
like the ones that i heard
singing last night
out there in the stubbly field
before I slept, and met you.
When we read this in class I thought that it was talking about dreams or nightmares and how sometimes we wonder what kind of dreams we are going to have that night. Whether it is a nightmare or a wonderful dream. We can only hope that our dreams are not filled with death and major fears. We can only ask for crickets and small brown bats before we fall asleep because we are not in control of how how fear effects our dreams.
"He follows us, he keeps track." This line i felt like it was saying that we can not escape from our fears because it is constantly following us and keeping track. "Each day his lists are longer." While he follows us he learns more about us and what our fears our. "Mr. Fear, we say in our dreams what do you have or me tonight?" So now fear comes to us in our sleep.
What I mostly got from this poem is that we can not escape our fears not even in our dreams. So all we can do is live with what we hand we are dealt and make the best out of it and live to overcome all of our fears.
I noticed that sentences were cut off in the middle and made into a new stanza and for me that made me think about what was coming next.
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