Young Palisadian Poets

Three Pacific Palisades students recently had poems featured in the “2016 California Poets in the Schools Statewide Anthology.”

The students—Florianne Berendsen and Ellery Preven of Palisades Charter Elementary School, and Lucas Fox of Marquez Charter Elementary School—had their works selected from a pool that enjoyed hundreds of student-poet submissions.

The title of this year’s anthology is “Where Animals Move Like Planets.”

Here are the students’ selected pieces:

Clouds

Gray skies curse this blessed day,

I wish for sun, I wish for rain.

But only dark clouds gather, promising,

but not giving.

Sitting on a rooftop, the sparrow chirps happily.

But the hawk comes, a black menace

in the sky, bursting through the cloud

cover, shooting at full speed, talons

outstretched, beak open.

The sparrow disappears inside the hawk,

its life snuffed out like a candle flame.

Oh, why must life be so cruel!

Oh, why must death be so painful!

But as the hawk rises above the treetops,

gliding on warm updrafts. The beauty of Mother Nature

exhaled in the rise and fall of the hawk’s golden wings,

In her soaring movements as she flies up and up,

her flight seemingly boundless,

The sky’s the limit to her star-spangled flying

Up and above
the clouds.

—ELLERY PREVEN

Po-e-try

Poetry is your thoughts

spilled out on paper

the slips that bare

your feelings

the knowledge

left over time

the Sunday

afternoon with

no one to talk

Poetry is

the only paper heart

you can have

—FLORIANNE BERENDSEN

Dangerous

Dangerous lives underground in

a dungeon. He has deep dark eyes

that stare at you. He is scarlet red

with messy black hair. He sits on

a throne made of spikes. He eats rare

steak with cold mashed potatoes.

He never waits for the light to turn

green. He has been in many accidents,

but has not been hurt because he is

Dangerous. His brother is Spooky and

they visit each other a lot. Dangerous

likes to create thunderstorms and

help weave spiderwebs.

—LUCAS FOX