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Students in Joy Clumsky's creative writing class at Lawrence High School have been busy creating poetry. This time their efforts focus on Chinese poetry that explore the writer's inner and outer worlds.

Snow-Covered Wings

The brisk wind blows my fairy wings.

Covering my feet, the silver snow

Freezes them to the unloving ground.

My eyes,

Stinging with cold,

Are suddenly ablaze

When the sun makes his first appearance.

From the melting mounds,

I rip my feet.

The numbness

Bestows upon me the gift of flying.

My steps become light and free

As I spread my fairy wings

And learn to fly.

-- By Shelby Green

Painful Departure

Clenching the door jamb tightly am I,

Watching as he goes.

My screams at his back

Are ripped from his ears

By the electric wind.

Late leaves swirl up

And make a wall,

Holding him from me.

The sun pursues cover in the poplars

As the fractured earth catches my tears.

With each step east he takes,

The crag in my stomach

Grows and grows.

Hostile words charge the sky.

They blister and blacken the sky.

The crickets play me

A somber, somber song.

-- By Kimiko A. Jackson

Unanswered Death -- For Matt

Jumbled thoughts whir in my brain.

Through icy window panes,

I watch a similar storm.

Dark and whirling snow obscures the straight road.

All feelings converge like the snowdrifts,

Forming the unanswerable question, "Why?"

The last I saw was a look, a smile.

Now, the memory invades,

Usurping your place, but not doing it justice.

As the snow will melt,

The questions and grief may fade.

As you return to that cloud

From whence you came,

May Heaven open wide its nurturing arms

And clasp you in its bosom.

-- By Laura Ettredge

Gods of Dawn

Under young morning's cracking song,

My fasting hunger halts me not --

Interest arrests me in pondering

The feverish sky, white.

Placed on the canyon's ledge

Above all, thirsty cacti,

Darkened they,

Below my twiddling feet.

I am garden's god

To them,

To them -- the water bearer.

Yet, unfortunate -- they are firmly rooted

Below in thirst,

Nine-hundred stories below.

With empathy, from my water bottle

I take a drink in their name,

And I am satisfied

As it rips down my palette.

The horizon's lemon

Rises with honor to warm

Its worshiping patrons

Who lie limp on mist-filled grass,

Nine-hundred stories below.

-- By Blair Gordon

One

My mind, it reels

In this, my shattered cell.

I stand upon the ruins

Of my family's ancient keep

With broken spires

And toppled walls,

Black stones beneath my boots.

The midnight stars wink wearily

From a million years of toil.

The winter blasts

Knife through my cloak

And freeze the blood beneath.

Pulling close my winter garb,

I trudge back to my steed.

A color catches my tired eyes,

And, curious, I kneel down,

And buried there in drifts of snow

A rose lies, crimson life.

I pluck it from its resting place

To tuck into my belt.

My eyes, molten, liquid gold,

Soften at the thought

That amid this icy, desolate land

Such beauty could still thrive.

-- By Nick Jacob

Entwined

My body is entwined

With hammock vibrations

As feet,

Blackening,

Rock heel to toe.

Fires,

Drifting to Zion,

Send burning streams

Through bamboo canopies.

Burn, the fires do,

Until sweat from Anu's brow

Makes earthly dreads

Glint like halos.

His hands,

Burning,

Working,

Transform lapis, turquoise and amber,

And I and I,

My body entwined

With hammock vibrations,

Just observe.

-- By Jesse Anderson