Featured Poem: “Juillet”

Our latest listener challenge is for high school poets:
write a poem on the theme of summer.
Poet Dorothea Lasky will choose a winnerin time for the start of school. All summer long, we’re highlighting some of our favorite entries here on the blog.

Juillet

by Emma, 16 – from Massachusetts

Sunset on the water.
Rough familiar planks beneath my feet.
Flying like a heron down the wooden dock,
Soaring through the air–
Splash.
Slowly sinking,
into the deep dark coolness.
A secret world.
My secret world.
Kingdoms of fish and smiling mermaids.
A shaft of light filters through the blackness,
lighting my way to the soft carpet below.
My toes dig in, relishing the silky sand
before blasting off to the surface
like a rocket to the moon.
Rejoining the world with a kiss of cool air on my cheeks,
I grasp the ladder and leap again.
Cannonball.