Young Writers Project is a creative, online community of teen writers and visual artists that started in Burlington in 2006. Each week, VTDigger publishes the writing and art of young Vermonters who post their work on youngwritersproject.org, a free, interactive website for youth, ages 13-19. To find out more, please go to youngwritersproject.org or contact Executive Director Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org; (802) 324-9538.
Fall is a distinct feeling, made up of a distinct atmospheric recipe — but like all cozy, comforting dishes, there are always a few varied ingredients and combinations to choose from. For some, fall is one part chill in the air, one part pumpkin spice latte; for another, it’s a slice of apple pie and a scary movie. And for this week’s featured poet, Isla Segal of Woodstock, fall is New England’s famous collage of colors, and the very soil covering our roads, hay bales, and (only the best, and ugliest) pumpkins.
Tell you
Isla Segal, 13, Woodstock
To tell you
what fall is
if you didn’t know
would be the task of a poet,
and even my best words
wouldn’t tell you,
really.
I could tell you what it’s like
to look up at the hills
that are half orange-red-yellow,
a quarter bare, brown branches,
a quarter green pine trees
that will weather even the three-foot snowstorm
that will be here in February.
I could explain the leaves
that scatter across the dirt roads,
and that’s before I even talk about the different kinds of dirt roads
(the tourists
in their beige with 20 million Instagram photos
Don’t understand the difference
between winding gravel
and the straight, smooth roads
we just call dirt).
I could say that the leaves curve in ways
that they only could with thin, little veins like that,
and I’d say how they’re red on the edges
and yellow-brown on the inside.
I could talk about the wrapped hay bales,
how they look white from far away,
but when you’re perched on top of one
with your best friend,
you can tell that it’s muddy, too.
I’d talk about how the imperfect pumpkins
are the best of all,
the ones that are lumpy rectangles,
with dirt coating the bottom
and lopsided tops.
But none of my words could tell you
about this thing
that is my every-day,
that I don’t think about
but that’s there,
in more than a million words
and a million pictures.
It’s about you and how you feel it,
and I couldn’t say how,
but I love fall for the dirt
(roads,
on pumpkins,
in the hay,
and everywhere else),
and all its other imperfections.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Young Writers Project: ‘Tell you’.