Painting
Caroline Buck, 15
Michigan

Her canvas is blank, as is her mind.
She stares into the swirling pattern of it
with her bright brown eyes.
Paintbrush in hand, ready at will.
As she ponders what to paint,
her gaze falls into a blissful world
created by her mind’s eye.

She sees flowers in an open field,
a crisp blue sky of unpolluted air,
morning dew clings to each blade of grass.
In this world, there is no war, no hate, no discrimination.
Small children can play outside without fear of abduction.
In this world, people are created equal
and race, religion, and gender don’t matter.
There are no guns, drugs, or violence.
People don’t litter
and people don’t steal.
There is no need for police,
for there is no crime.
Everyone has a warm home to go back to
and food on the table each night.
No one is corrupted by money,
and poverty doesn’t exist.
There are equal opportunities for everyone.
In this world, there is no such thing as rich or poor,
for there is no money, and people
don’t judge you by your looks.

In this world,
my world,
I shall live.

Picture
Michael Barton, 13
Massachusetts
Some people say
a picture’s worth one thousand words
but what if you need one thousand
and one?

What if
all of the one thousand words
were wrong?

What if the picture
was just a picture?
An image without
words. Because
in all honesty
isn’t that the beauty of
the picture?

Does it mean
anything at all?
Zero words.
Or less.

Captures what a memory
forgets.
But a memory is often more than
one thousand words.

The Crayon Box
Alexandra Oatman , 16
Colorado

The crayons in this box
have plain tips and bottoms
and scribble their hearts out,
drawing, their signatures creative.
In the dark, they sleep
making colored dots
on the top of the box.
And who would care
how they long
for the time when the children’s
hands are busy?
They anticipate
the child-like hands,
freeing them,
their terrible hunger,
their creative souls.

Drawing with No Adjectives
Nicole Fleisher, 17
New York

Drawing with no adjectives is like a bird flying
with
no
wings.
It will not work.
I need the color and “edge” to express the
way
I
think.
I need to use imagination to think of what I
want
to
express.
I need the color, edge, and imagination.
Drawing without adjectives,
I’m not interested.

A song grasps the soul with tentacles of emotion.
A poem sits heavy on the mind.
A volume, slim but full of wisdom,
captures attention,
while the whispers of romance beckon from a novel.

Grace sits regally upon the brow of a dancer.
Ah, and such passion commands respect for a
composition of notes.
A photo creates questions,
while a star of the opera demands tears.
An artist of the easel illustrates the world
and its twin sides,
while the players make it come to life.

But the master of it all is the child,
who creates crayon drawings out of love