Poems from Humboldt County
Updated: Apr 16, 2020
By MARELBU, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53754719
Yellow? Yellow, the color of happiness and hope. It’s what makes the sweet honeysuckles so inviting, but it’s also what makes the sun so intimidating. Yellow, a bright, fragile song, whispering in the waves, but also a bitter, impatient lemon. Yellow feels like water, it has so many ways, sometimes it’s cold and numb, sometimes it’s burning so hot it gives you blisters, sometimes it’s a refreshing trickle or mist. Yellow, without touch, soothes your wounds, or makes them worse. Its unpredictable, ever-changing self is sweet on the outside, broken on the inside. Yellow hides spicy secrets and holds impossible grudges. As confident as yellow may seem, sometimes it hates being a lemon or a sunflower. Yellow wants to change, and stop living in the shadow of gold, stop being called a gold wannabe. Yellow wishes she were a furious, bold red, or an optimistic orange, or a lonely, underestimated blue, or, or, even a vomit green! That disgusting color of jealousy would be better than yellow! At least that’s what yellow would think. Yellow doesn’t understand its beauty and grace, or what joy it spreads. Naeva Wilke, 6th Grade Skyfish School, Humboldt Pete Harrison, Classroom Teacher Dan Zev Levinson, Poet-Teacher
Hello I’m Helix. Extended kisses is what I have. Lick lick. I’m Milo’s dog. X out cats! Milo Boyer, 2nd Grade Dow’s Prairie Elementary School, Humboldt Jenny Ramos, Classroom Teacher Dan Zev Levinson, Poet-Teacher
Geode Can Mean Ode You are the earth made of life, You are a poem crazy and cool, You are the other half’s wife, You feel like the walls of a pool. When you’re in the sun, You glimmer and shine, You look fun, But you are not mine. You belong to earth, You saw the world, On the day of your birth, Then you curled. Hailey Trone, 3rd Grade Hydesville Elementary School, Humboldt Rachael Riggs, Classroom Teacher Dan Zev Levinson, Poet-Teacher
Gone (a poem on global warming) Life will change soon. So will the colors. Red, the wilting flower that sits in front of me, the one that used to bring me hope. Orange, all the Halloweens I spent trick-or-treating with my friends and family. Yellow, accepting people the way they are. Green, the trees that would sway in the wind. Blue, the waves tickling my feet as I lay on the shoreline. Purple, reminding me that it’s coming. Black, to the dark hole of all our memories. They’re all gone. Gone. Lula Andrae, 6th Grade Garfield School, Humboldt Alaina Kelley, Classroom Teacher Dan Zev Levinson, Poet-Teacher
I Don’t Know I don’t know what’s inside of me but every second I feel like it’s snowing outside and I’m inside with my friends and family sipping heated cocoa and watching a nice movie it’s like a fair with fun rides and candy floss and mini donuts it feels like a burning summer day at camp it’s like a sleepover with your best friend doing your favorite things it’s like the end of school activities it’s like a birthday pie it’s like when you actually get math it’s sledding down a snowy hill it’s anything but bad. Phaedra Steadman, 4th Grade Whitethorn Elementary School, Humboldt Elizabeth Ballou, Classroom Teacher Dan Zev Levinson, Poet-Teacher
Baby Blue See what Baby Blue can do. He is as cool as a Lamborghini. He feels like a diamond as tall as a pyramid. He says he is ready for another poem. He is as calm as an everyday time. He moves like a cheetah getting its food taken away. He tastes like an ice cream sandwich. Baby Blue wants to be baby new. I wonder what else Baby Blue can do. Probably more than you. Davey Hipes, 2nd Grade Ambrosini Elementary School, Humboldt René Brown, Classroom Teacher Dan Zev Levinson, Poet-Teacher
Book I am a book dropping. The kind that can see the monsters in you. The one book that can read you instead of you reading it. I’m no original book perhaps I’m not a book at all maybe I’m a dream. A musical dream that doesn’t play music at all. Or I’m a wish that people have seen never before. A wish that could fly away close my eyes get lost in a secret place no one will find. Baylee Carpenter, 5th Grade Peninsula Elementary School, Humboldt Tess Yinger & Linda Stewart, Classroom Teachers Dan Zev Levinson, Poet-Teacher
Remember When Remember when you had so much fun shaking with joy. Remember when you were scared you were shivering hoping that it would just end. Remember when you were alone and then you felt like you could never fit in. Remember when you just found that friend that could keep you company. Remember when you saw the real world for the first time. Remember when you were crying on your parent’s shoulder and your parent helped you. Even if you think things are just left forgotten, please remember when. Isaiah Case, 4th Grade Morris Elementary School, Humboldt Melika Huneke, Classroom Teacher Dan Zev Levinson, Poet-Teacher
life, time, Death and the ocean life time Death roll all the same ways they feed off the ocean they breathe in the ocean’s mist life time and Death also copy it life rises as the way the ocean waves do the ocean repeats so does time Death crashes down upon the living the way the waves crash and break the coral River Mattole, 6th Grade Mattole School, Humboldt Kevin Vesely, Classroom Teacher Dan Zev Levinson, Poet-Teacher
Elodia Blows She glows and feels rough She tastes like sorrow She hears you when you scream She sounds like a baby crying She moves like a zombie She is always angry at you She knows what we did She tries to fix it We ruined her life ELODIA Lost everyOne During fIres And global warming Avin Clow, 3rd Grade Mattole School, Humboldt Nick Tedesco, Classroom Teacher Dan Zev Levinson, Poet-Teacher
Earth Speak Up I am old to some young to others. I’m the weight of the world. Am I trash. Do I matter. I keep heaven and hell at peace. While you’re sleeping I keep moving. Don’t put trash in my ocean. Don’t keep hurting me. Don’t play your war games anymore. Speak up earth and I will answer your call. Madison Weaver, 4th Grade Trillium Charter School, Humboldt Aly Lescht, Classroom Teacher Dan Zev Levinson, Poet-Teacher
Why Cut Me Down? The redwood forest knows, feels, and sees. When the redwood moans he whispers, when he whispers he sings, when he sings he says, “Why cut me doooown? I just want to be a home and help you breathe.” Then one day I heard him singing this song while I was getting ready to cut him down. When the redwood tree starts singing I wonder and imagine what it would be like to be a redwood tree having to deal with people trying to cut me down every day! When the redwood sings once more I think if he can sing he is alive. The redwood forest knows, feels, and sees. When the redwood moans he whispers, when he whispers he sings. Aurelia Stage, 4th Grade Orleans Elementary School, Humboldt Shelly Slusser, Classroom Teacher Dan Zev Levinson, Poet-Teacher
Thirst for Sound I wish I could hear your eyes’ voice. The way they roar when you’re excited. How. When your passion comes up in a conversation they scream. I wish I could hear your mind’s life beat. How when you’re drawing, creativity gives your ideas. Oxygen. I wish I could hear your blood travelling. Every beat the cells are bouncing. When you’re angry the road is. Popping. I wish I could hear your smile forming. Knowing you’re happy is comforting and if you were forcing to show your teeth I will know because. The sound. It would be different. I wish I could hear the universe speaking. Adriana Cutsall, 9th Grade Redwood Writing Project, Young Writers Camp, Humboldt Marsha Mielke, Classroom Teacher Dan Zev Levinson, Poet-Teacher
In 100 Years (after “A Hundred Years from Now” by David Shumate) What’s going on? How’s everything? Is the tundra still there? Has cancer been cured? Please tell me?! Are there new animals? new fruits, vegetables, races? I’m hoping it’s about the same, better. I’m leaving you knowledge, right now May 26, 2016 we have an election, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton. Do you remember this? Polar bears are almost extinct, the tundra is melting, send help. —100 years ago Anaiyah Yemaya, 6th Grade McKinleyville Middle School, Humboldt Lizzie Dostal, Classroom Teacher Dan Zev Levinson, Poet-Teacher
Why Questions fall out of thoughts like asteroids falling out of the sky. Questions come out that have no response as some have no meaning. I have gone ill of these wonders as they come at me like an attack, as I age. Why Why Why don’t do ain’t bears people I a fly? exist? horse? In my reason. perspective no these have questions So why do they keep on paying treason? Lying under the stars I doze, then the answer soaks into me! WHY NOT?! Asa Ryce, 4th Grade Skyfish School, Humboldt Sean Anderson and Ella Early, Classroom Teachers Dan Zev Levinson, Poet-Teacher
Black My heart is black like a panther, my eyes are red like a monster, I feel strong like burning fire, I will never stop following the sun, I will follow the sun until I die, I will not stop u