Scholastic Art and Writing Award Winner!

Tanner loves to write poems as a way to relax. He found a contest where poems (or writing or a huge variety of art) could be submitted. Out of 12,000 regional writing and art entries, Tanner is a "gold key winner" and will be advanced for a chance to compete in "nationals." The Battle for the Hill" is my favorite! Here's a big thanks to our Scholastic friend, Kathy, whose love of children, especially boys, is why Tanner was able to enter.

The Astronomers
Oh that I might view the stars!

To touch the golden spheres.

That eyes of mine could read the light

which warms our hemispheres.

How I'd sing to hold the sky,

And gaze upon the moons.

Yet bound by earth's design I standand stare beneath the ruins.

I pray to see a galaxy,

Or meet a nebulai.

Though ground below is kind to me,

With wings I'd rather fly.

To see a million stars or more;

To soar is what we seek!

Feet our only carriers though,

remind us we are weak.

And so I'll from this hilltop wait

while heaven doth beliemy vision;

and my dreams will wait

to touch the starry sky.

Inquire Within
What, you ask, do I possess?

What is in my hand?

Where upon this earth doth sit

my house upon the land?

A cabinet, sir, do I own,within its drawers my clothes.

And perched on top its solemn chest,

A tissue for my nose.

A closet, sir, I also own,

To place within my shoes.

And suits and ties and custard pie,

But nothing else to lose.

My house doth slant top craggy rock.

Its doors refuse to close.

To take a bath just once a month

I use the garden hose.

So if good sir my life desire,

Do please inquire within!

My door is always open

And I am always in.

The Battle for the Hill
The clover all was crying:

the flowers were at war.

The daffodils were neutral

and the roses beaten sore.

The bluebonnets, conceited,

mocked the roses' reds;

the daises had retreated--many'd lost their heads.

Victorious, the sunflowers

did lift above them all

and move their swaying, seedy eyes

to watch the flora fall.

Nature's Inquisition

Oh flower who sits beneath the bows of trees and waits for light!
The sun is but a mystery an’ your day is but a night.
I would that I might set you down upon a spread of grass more free.
That you might bask in Helios’ light and whisper to the bee.
To see you on a hilltop fair; with your own and quite uncovered.
Among a thousand daisies dancing and petals quite unsmothered.
But death I’d cause to you should I pluck from under ferns.
Your petals and your stem must wilt to seek the warmth it yearns.

I Am the Bridge
I am, but the grass among two oaks; a carpet joining the mighty tread of two colossi.
Joining the roots of one to another and proving a canvas to spread their mixed shade.
I am, the moss raised between two solid slabs of concrete, each laid to connect the path of children and their thoughts.
Rounding what were once sharp boundaries and joining them with a bridge, soft underfoot for ants and men alike.
I am that poet desired by Mnemosyne[i] to sing melodies into the world’s ear.
A being whose only pain arises from miseries viewed hostage from Privilege’s window.
A light, lost among the lost; Hope’s own link in the fragile chain forged from generations.
Man to boy; boy yet man.
And when a man, pray I am still a boy.
Even one who gazes still at unreached celestial glories
With newly awakened eyes.
And stops awhile
To rest among beds of grass.

[i] Greek goddess of memory; akin to Moneta and mentioned in Keats’ “The Fall of Hyperion.” The line “sing melodies into the world’s ear” is also mentioned in this poem