Best Gift Ever for a Writer: Words

The teens at camp. They read my book!

The teens who participated in Auburn's creative writing camp this summer gave me an amazing gift. They wrote poems based on the opening of Cleopatra's Moon. Some wrote from the perspective of the dead brother, others from the ship or even the ocean. I have to share some of them with you:

From the perspective of the ship:

Oak Beast

A beast made the flesh of oak

drifts across my body

the beast shouts in many voices

then it is silent.

It drops something into my depths

It sinks farther and farther

then, something drops out of its skin

a small black horse

 

From the dead brother's point of view:

Forevermore

 I am cold forevermore.

I am cold, and the world is black

and my heart is still 

and I wish for rest.

As my eyes are covered, 

the world grows colder, darker

and my journey begins.

I remain cold forevermore.

From Cleopatra Selene's point of view:

Puzzle Incomplete

Watching him thoughtfully,

he left me behind

gone forever

sweet brother of mine,

heart swelled with grief and sorrow

I can only wish his soul a fair good morrow.

Farewell, my brother,

missing puzzle piece,

my friend.

From death's point of view:

Death's Ode to Little Moon

Such a sorry, pretty girl

rumored for grand things.

She hardly relieved her kin to me.

Her mother and her brother gone,

the last to die and be free.

Death's sweet, swift comfort is to be known

by her weary eyes,

yet like her mother's determined gaze,

it fails to fall, but rise.

And Anubis's:

I'm Listening

She was praying

I heard her asking me 

about her brother.

She was sending him my way 

into the underworld,

entering the river westward.

There are many more wonderful examples of their work, of course--I just wanted to provide a sampling. But really, it's all been so humbling. Thank you Ashley Parsons and Chantel Acevedo (writer and professor extraordinaire) for making it all happen!