Badgerblog

—after Lisa Jarnot’s “Poem Beginning with a Line by Frank Lima”

And how bones it is to write a frail poem
Murder how murder it is on gun
On the dare and watch the bloods
Go by and how frail it is to be misled
Inside a death and how frail it is to be
Death as it murders inside the house
And how frail it is shaped like a pig
To be filled with hair and murder
And on the street and how frail it is to see the bloods
Inside the bones and knife and how frail the knife is
Killing at night in their trashy way
And burning through the haunts and
How frail is the night shrinking of the bells and
Distant knives and how frail it is to write this poem
As I fall to fall I’m the distant knives in my fish and in flame
The knives in death riding bloods to bones at night

Oliver, fourth grade, downtown summer camp

And so a storm rolls in,
in the sky
and in my mind,
where I find
even God cries
for the unhappiness
of a wayward son.

Vaughan, eleventh grade, St. Michael’s Catholic Academy

Our relationship is awkward.
Awkward hugs,
awkward smiles,
awkward silences.
We try our best
not to get too close,
not to hug that much.
Mostly because . . . it’s awkward.

I’ve known him since sixth grade.
He’s always been the
prideful,
competitive,
confident one.
Me, not so much.
I’m the one with
no pride,
uncompetitive,
and unconfident.
He wrote in my yearbook
last year,
“These years have been great
because you were always there
to be second chair,”
then was excited
when he rhymed “there” and “chair”
and didn’t even realize it
’til after he wrote it.

Lately though,
he has been rude and odd,
like he’s PMS-ing or something,
so that just adds to the awkwardness,
especially when that girl is all over him,
or his ex wants to get back with him
because he grew a couple of inches,
and they have three classes together.

I’m not angry
or jealous,
just filled with amazement
at just how
awkward
our relationship has grown over the years.

Jessica, ninth grade, Badgerdog alum

Dear child who may or might have been,
Who is and is not me,
I look back and I think that those,
Your years,
Must have been so lonely and so alone,
Even when you thought you understood all,
Defined all.
You were the child who was often message-boy,
Rarely confidante,
The only one who could not jump rope,
Who failed to conquer the monkey bars,
And lived with friendships of geography
While you tried so hard not to trip over Barbie dolls
Lying shamelessly naked on the rug.
And yet you thought you were queen and prophet,
You stood invincible,
You had the audacity to jest at scars
Even while you idolized that one kid who spent
___all of second grade in graffitied casts.
I look back at the echoes of your illegible hand
Filling up half-used diaries,
And I do not know if I should praise you
___or bury you.

Sarah, high school, north summer camp

Sonai says colors from the fire determine our people’s fate. Sonai says I am too young to light the wooden ring in our people’s colors from the fire celebration. I say, I am nine years old and that makes me a woman. Father says, “Kaika, you are too young. What if the arrow drops and burns you?”

“Well,” I say, “what if the arrow shooter misses and burns you to the ground?”

Suddenly Father’s smile turns to a scowl, and I am sent to my family’s teepee. Later that night, when the snow white moonlight pierces my warm bright eyes, Sonai tells us it is time for our fate deciding. My mother Javen goes first. “Ah, Javen, you will be expecting soon!” Mother’s eyes fill with joy.

Next, Akzir, my annoying older sister. “Akzir, you will have good luck!” She starts prancing around like a pony, until mother stops her.

And finally . . . drumroll . . . me. “Ah Kaika, you will go through an adventure.” What did he mean? I couldn’t ask because he had vanished from behind the ivy green flames. Besides, nothing ever happens to me.

AWOO! Huh? AWOO! Wolves. I look up. Father is awake too. “Kaika, stay here, with your mother and sister,” he says. I knew he was out there fighting the pack of wolves. But I was worried. Last time Father fought a wolf, he ended up wounded.

“Ahhhhhh!” What now?

“Ahhhhhhhh!” Father! Suddenly, there is Father, hovering from a wolf’s jaws, cherry blood spilling from his face. When the wolf runs off with the last of our winter meat, I run too. I run past the trees, and onto the fragile, icy blue lake until I see the wolf. Step . . . creak . . . step . . . crack . . . step . . . crack! Then boom! As I fall into the freezing water, the wolf falls with me. I open my eyes: pain. But I see the wolf.

The meat falls from its jaws as it falls into the darkness of the lake. I catch the meat and climb to the surface onto the icy blue frozen lake.

Whoosh! The flaming arrow goes through the hoop. My feather earrings sway along with my porcupine dress. “All hail Kaika the Great!” my father says.

That’s when it hits me. The colors of the fire don’t determine our fate. We do.

I look at my wooden medal. It says: To Kaika Lavfenta Khant, for extraordinary bravery. My new pet fox prowler lays on my leg. The sunset fades as winter ends.

THE END

Taylor, middle school, north summer camp

When I asked the Great Wall of China, “How long are you?”
The Wall twisted. Creaking noises and dust filled the air.
It trembled and shook.
And right in front of me, a hole opened up in the Wall.
Dust filled the air once more.
I peered down the hole.
“What?” I said.
A ruler spat out.

Walter, middle school, south summer camp

the eager upturned faces of the amphibious vegetarians
peeking morally from out of the organic murk
the hundreds of anonymous grey minnows
viciously darting about, trading positions like atoms
riding on the submerged backs of their musky-shelled
brethren
politely expecting, staring, asking, wanting
pushing forth their geometric little bodies
shoving, coyly swimming at various paces
jabbing the sunny shadows of patchy light
meeting neck to orange-striped neck in comical aggressive embrace
patrolling the wet sludgy perimeter
beware of granddaddy grey, wise fishy intruder
observing the leafy corralled island
dunking spherical shells and limbs and nosy heads
beneath the occasional sapphire flitting dragonfly
dreamily watching the optical illusions of the shallow depths
the affectionately brief nose kisses.

Cali, ninth grade, downtown summer camp

Today, I took my sidewalk chalk
my sidewalk chalk of assorted colors.
I went outside
out on my street
and started to rub my chalk on the sidewalk
the old concrete sidewalk.
I had time
maybe a little too much.
I had spent all day there
in the hot, hot sun
just rubbing, rubbing down my sidewalk chalk.
And when I finished,
I swelled with pride
at that masterpiece
I created.
Then, it started to rain.

Eliana, middle school, downtown summer camp

Soft but sharp and blue like the sky,
Bright and yellow as the sun goes by.
Dolphin jumps high above the water,
As deer run fast in the evergreen forests.
In the sky, flying in a “V,”
Swans fly North across the sea.
Cherry blossom trees
Swaying in the wind.
As I sit and watch this
The day is coming in.

Alexa, middle school, south summer camp (poem and illustration)

The desert awakes with a whispered sigh.
A jackrabbit scurries through the brush
while far above a raven cries.
Dawn breaks from a frozen hush.

A jackrabbit scurries through the brush
bent on finding food to eat.
Dawn breaks from a frozen hush,
the cold chill of the night retreats.

Bent on finding food to eat,
a roadrunner darts across the sand.
The cold chill of the night retreats
as fiery warmth fills the land.

A roadrunner darts across the sand
in the shadow of a towering saguaro.
As fiery warmth fills the land
the cactus wren peers at a beetle below.

In the shadow of a towering saguaro
a bevy of quail march by in a line.
The cactus wren peers at a beetle below.
On a sunny rock the lizard reclines.

A bevy of quail march by in a line
while far above a raven cries.
On a sunny rock the lizard reclines.
The desert awakes with a whispered sigh.

Mallika, sixth grade, north summer camp