Young poets win contest

By Caroline Monday

Youth Services at Watauga County Public Library invited the area’s budding poets to submit their work to a poetry contest during the month of April. The contestants were able to share their work at a reading at the end of the month and display their work on a poetry tree in the children’s section of the library. Here are the top two winning poems by Stephanie Richard and Rosi Goetz. To read more of the submitted poems, visit the poetry tree.

Stephanie Richard won the Watauga library’s youth poetry contest for her poem, “The Power of the Wind.” Photo submitted

The Power of the Wind
by Stephanie Richard

As I dodge the creeping shadows cast upon my wall
And dock my deep weariness in nighttime’s bay,
The wind overtakes the noises of the day.
So I listen to the wild wail surge and fall,
Pounding for entrance at the window in the hall.

The house sways and quivers violently in the wind
With moaning gusts that fill my soul with dread.
Frightened, I shelter beneath the covers on my bed
And there at last find quiet, like a welcome friend.
But still I hear the tortured trees succumb, and bend.

Then I feel the presence of yet a stronger force.
He stills the winds and unleashes them again.
Peace in this raging storm protects me from within.
Lasting protection comes from our Alimighty source.
Even while the cruel winds show no remorse.

Untitled
by Rosi Goetz

The old woman sat
In her cozy house
And stared at her hands.
There was a story there.

She studied her hands, noting
Each scar that stood for her work
And herÊplay.
There were many for both.

She gazed at the lines on her palm
How they curved and straightened
Where they started and
How they branched.

She picked at the fabric covering her wrist.
It was good fabric, but worn.
Every thread she had made,
And she had worn the cloth proudly.Ê

But what about her actions,
Those that could not be measured
By her hands, the actions
Toward her fellow humans?

She had done nothing grand
She had stayed in her cottage
All her life.
She had done nothing.

And she grieved, for what
She could have done and yet had not.
She went onto her little porch
And gazed at the life around her.

A boy was walking, toward her.
He stopped near her porch and said
‘my mother thanks you, for giving us
the food we needed.’

A pink-cheeked girl hugged her
And said happily
‘thank you, for my brothers
christening clothes.’

And so it went as
The old lady stood on her porch
And realized
I have done good after all.

She looked at her hands.
They were marked by carrying the
Cans of food, and sewing
The christening clothes, and more.

The lines on her hand
The life-line, as it was called,
Was indicative of her work
It was straight and long and true and deep.

And the woman smiled.
She had indeed done good.