the rain that runs away

The Catlin Gabel School Senior Poetry Writing class final projects.

2022 CGS Senior Poetry Chapbooks

Acknowledgements Thank you to my Dad: for always talking about poetry but never writing it.

Table of Contents Hidden Away (Beneath the Canopy) Acclimatization, or In Limbo To Make Something of My Own Nannie's Funeral

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To Make Something of My Own My hands search the pile of well-machined pieces to the puzzle I’m putting together. The pile that reminds me of well-meaning paper stacked on the desk of my Dad. Where it sits, scissor-cut and hand-ripped, awaiting a trial by the unintentional prophet&nbsp; of his magazine junkyard. The puzzle doesn’t tell me a story or show me how to choose who to be. It leaves me with questions it’s too rigid to answer. Maybe it would be easier to use my own hands.&nbsp; To make a collage of my own.

Acclimatization, or In Limbo A sun-warmed storm forms, tame on the horizon. Then in record time it picks up the ground in its name. It tears through the air as it starts to climb, like flames it fills your lungs with fire and short, sharp breaths lacking rhythm or rhyme. Knees buckle under the force of greedy desire where the wind whips through unlearned hope tinted by the yellow gaze of a new-age liar. The storm overwhelms your last grip on hope. Each step towards the edge stuck in the sand and tied down with rope. Each step towards some semblance of action, struck by the unbearable wind of silence and caught just when you’ve run out our luck. The world burns like your lungs in that sand and when you reach out to grab another arm, something unseen tears their fingers from your hand.

For such defects, and not for other guilt, Lost are we and are only so far punished, That without hope we live on in desire. — Dante Alighieri, Inferno IV, 40-42

Hidden Away (Beneath the Canopy) Where sunshine scatters its spellbound sound, It pokes and it peeks at pine-covered ground. In the middle, I sit, cross legged, silent. Spellbound sunshine scatters its sound Where a hushed wind weaves through the leaves of the trees, Secrets exchanged with each brush in the breeze. I sit in the middle, observant, silent. The wind hushes leaves as it weaves through the trees. Where birds, bugs, and worms fight a bush-hidden war, Slight rustles stop — then restart once more. In the middle, I sit, cross legged, silent. Worms bug birds in their hidden bush-war. Where a shove and a snap of a twig and a tap displace the sound as I tread through the gap. I sit in the middle, cross legged, in silence, Enjoying the peace from our audible giants.

the rain that runs away by Seth Knights

Nannie’s Funeral You wouldn’t know it but I wore a bowtie that day. “Just like Pop” you would say. He never knew it either,&nbsp; he didn’t get to know me anyways. But, still, I wore a bowtie that day. My eyes watched&nbsp; as my mother stood still in front of that door. Her feet planted firmly on the floor. It was new to me, all this. I’d never been in a chapel&nbsp; with a purpose&nbsp; before. You laughed a goodbye, though we were so far apart and as you entered the room, you talked to my thoughts. Pink was your favorite, I knew from our talks, and that was the color of the bowtie I brought.

Name

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