I am lightning
I crackle and I boom
Look at me, look at me
I branch across the sky
Like a giant fiery try
I stalk across the musty earth
On legs of crackling flame
I flash beneath the clouds
Brighter than the sun
But when the sun returns
The clouds carry me
Grumbling away.

– Ramona Santana, age 13

From the anthology “Tell the World,” published by HarperCollins
Poem of the Month: October 2009

Luminous and pale, it floats over my head,
silver orb. It reflects back to me from the
depths of a puddle at my feet. It casts a ghostly
blue hue to my skin. Streetlight. I know the
difference, flicker and die. Let me see the moon.

– Anna-Mei Myers, age 15

From the WritersCorps book “Paper Dreams” at International Studies Academy
Poem of the Month: June 2009

I came out of this rounded earth that I made.
I put those glowing things in the sky at night.
My breath is the wind that makes you cold.
When I cry I give you rain.
Thunder comes from my anger.

I can climb to the sky
to make fluffy pillows
tell the sun to shine on you.
I can come back down
without salty water dripping from my skin.

I have diamond trees
in my backyard.
I gave my mother
the gift of Venus
the planet I named after her.

I can burn you
like an ant under a magnifying glass
the hot sun searing it.
I can catch a star
like the fisherman tosses his pole into the sea.
I fold this earth
like a mother folds laundry.

– Tina Ho, 17

From a WritersCorps publication at Ida B. Wells High School
Poem of the Month: September 2007

I am the wind
that blows your window curtains
apart, the wind that blows the leaves
off the trees and onto the dry grass.

I am that wind!

I can be gentle
or mad, but no matter what,
I am still that wind.
When I am gentle, I blow
not even an ant,
but when I’m mad, I shatter everything.

I am the wind!

I can mix
with water
to become hurricane
and after, nothing but rain.
I am the rain
going away
as the summer comes.

But I’ll be back.
I will be born from rivers, lakes, and oceans.
I am that rain.

– Anthony Mejia, 13

From the WritersCorps anthology “Solid Ground”
Poem of the Month: May 2007