The Turning of the Year

While the pundits debate whether the decade ends 12/31/19 or 12/31/20 -- there was no Year Zero, after all -- we hope you'll enjoy a warm beverage and a few snatches of writing and artwork from our talented contributors.  And if you could use a little inspiration for your own writing, check out "Burning the Old Year" by our current Young People's Poet Laureate, Naomi Shihab Nye.  Submit your work for Sevenatenine to your English teacher, and next month you could see your name published here!

Artwork by Lila S., Grade 8

The Orange Wood

A house stands in the orange wood.

There lives a man, heart full of good.

He is so kind, he is so fair

He lets nature roam anywhere.

His house holds an open door

The wildlife crawls upon the floor.

And when the sky turns black as lead

They rest around his sleeping head.

by Evelyn W., Grade 7

Artwork by Emily K., Grade 7

Face of  a Faker

His name conjures bravery;

one that swells to tell a tale

but shrivels to fear 

in milliseconds without fail.

Voice glazed with inky, manipulative lies

Soft-spoken, deep as oceans

yet carrying wicked falsehoods, 

like an actor's own notions

Words, seducingly so, are transparent

like a hive's sweetest honeycomb

with a drop of the deadliest poison, 

man has ever come to know.

Every step, guilt curls in my stomach

coming through in high tides,

waves rushing upon me

with no one I'm able to confide.

Strings pull and twist to loose ends,

leaving me alone to fend,

but friends can help to mend

the wounds left by the guilt I tend

Wound which could've been stopped

if I had stopped amends

to the complicated man who once was a friend

making a facade of make-believe pretend.

by Emily K., Grade 9

Artwork by Arina S., Grade 9