The River & The Earth - Greta Sents


​The earth is

The earth holds tender 

has taught it new shape with

what love is this that only takes,

Snaking between sweet fingers,

taking only, she fills him

and the earth . . . 

the earth holds the girl, 

They always love the river:

the river girl and the grass,

stars and dreams.

Kissing the bank,

drags the earth along,

while the grass kisses

And while the earth follows,

that the girl is the earth . . .

for every river

​the earth. ​
 the river is beauty,
               winding,
                       rushing,
                                 falling.
                   like the tide
          it moves in,
swift,
       sweeping,
                   blue depth beside
                                        white skin,
                           eyes track stars  
              and the grass . . .
 the grass kisses her back,
       a kiss that
           feels more like a bite,
                 more like a demand . . .
                         and the river bends
                              as the bank                                 follows,
          obeys and follows like sand,
 trapped in a glass,
        her fingers tremble,
             submitting to the strength
                            beside her.
               calm is not this place . . .
demanding as the cyclone
         of a hurricane,
                 consuming, angry,
                      but still . . .
                           the river is beauty.
                    lips kiss the bank
            and fall to her,
     laying next to
        the great temptress.
                 her mind becomes
                    filled with the river . . .
 


​​strong beneath her.

that which

demanding persistence;

or is it animosity? 

the river is love;

with the beauty of life   

the earth is calm and gentle,

yet the girl is in love with river. 

the roar and push, 

and the demanding pull to follow 

What are dreams to a rock? 

the river 

new shape and new life, 

the girl’s back.

the earth realizes  

because in calm there is always chaos; 

there must be, without fail,
Greta Sents, a senior from Gilbert High School, states that her goal was to create poems that could stand alone, but "build a story of a complex girl together."

*Greta's piece was selected as the Poetry Category Award Winner. Our editors were impressed with the relationship between the two poems, the use of form and shape as part of the poems, and for how well the two poems work as a combined piece. Congratulations Greta!

*Picture provided by author