kloiterra

as midterm approaches, all of my classes suddenly require extensive projects to be completed. this happens every semester, but it always catches me off-guard. overwhelmed, i chose Poetry Writing as the class that would be skipped in order to focus on the other projects. i figured i'd get away with it as i have a good rapport with the teacher, the same guy who taught my Film and Stage writing class last semester.
i like to write poetry, but i hate prompts; i don't want to be given a topic about which to write, just tell me what kind of style in which to write.
the assignment was to write a heritage poem, something about your family or a notable member of your family.
well, one uninteresting side of my family is dead,
the other side is alive, but just as uninteresting. i find writing and even thinking about this shit completely uninspiring.
a guy in class wrote his poem about his grandfather, a hard working farmer guy, who despite all the labor that his life involved, would pass it off as "just a day's work."
well shit, that's the poem i would have written.
instead i went the other way, wrote about myself and the familial situation i find myself in
when i consider the fact that i'm the last one with my name, the last hope for the family legacy to continue.
~~~~~~~~~~~

the last acorn


looking up at the twisted black skeleton
of a crooked oak,
dead from the top down,
its secrets forever silenced--
trapped in petrified limbs
that creak and moan in the winter wind,
the last acorn dangles from a brittle branch,
and dreams a wooden dream of the soft ground below,
the inevitable journey, returning to home,
on the warm breath of spring, to set roots of its own
or to be severed in winter and fall as a stone.

~~~~~~~~~~~