The poems of a Vermont girl wrestling with the important questions of life and death. A young poet writes her way into adulthood.
More about the author:
When Ceres was a sophomore in high school, she and I began an English class together—one student, one teacher. We floundered around at first. We read The Lord of the Flies, The Stranger, Man’s Search for Meaning. Then Ceres discovered Marie Howe’s This Is What the Living Do, and from that point on, it was a class about reading and writing poems. The school gave Ceres an English credit for her work and let us do another class for credit the next year when Ceres was a Junior. At the end of that school year, we put out The Mermaid Is Drowning on CreateSpace. Ceres is still writing poetry, and we are thinking of another book.
– Ruth Porter (Ceres’ grandmother)
Mayfly
Unsure of life, like mayflies —
Dying only sixteen hours
After they’re born.
Only sixteen years old,
But already,
She’s had enough.
When she opened her mouth
To the sweet waters of life
She was filled
With pain
And bitter lies
Like wine to a child,
Corrupted at first taste
And told,
“This is the truth.”
Fields
I remember that day
when everything was gone.
When my emotions
died in front of me
and how I couldn’t even cry.
How feeling things seemed foreign
like far away countries.
How we sat in front of each other
in that field.
We were captivated
by our own eyes.
And above us
The grass was so tall
It shed its seeds like confetti
in our golden hair.
And nothing touched us.
I remember how you reached for my hand,
and I forgot to notice.
How you took mine in yours
like innate habit.
