Back to Issue 1

ALL YOU WANT By Echo Wood
 
An oak falls in a forest, and no one
hears.  The sun sets in Amarillo, and
 
no one is there to view the splendor.  A
delicate bud has sprouted on the side
 
of the road, and people are too busy,
in a hurry, to see its triumph in
 
the harsh soil.  Lightning strikes, thunder cracks,
and children hide under their beds in the
 
dark.  A whirlwind wrecks havoc on a town,
destroying, as it has done forever.  When
 
the sun shows the work of the storm, people
come out of the ground, and see, and then they
 
cry and wonder why and wander why that
such a thing could happen after all they
 
had done to get their houses and their nice
and vain and precious things and to marry that
 
sultry gal or rich husband and to raise
those spoiled kids who play video games
 
and ignore their parents every second
of their lives and only talk to them to
 
get the things that they want.  And they wonder,
wander why they did lose their precious things.

A PEEK By Echo Wood
 
I'm not really here, though you can see me,
Just an illusion, a spectre from you dreams.
I know where your nightmares lie and what they contain,
I'm privy to the contents of your fears,
The fears you've been hiding all of these years.
In the dark you can see them in the mirrors, concealed behind the thin glass of your facade.
 
I lie in wait for your glance.
You see only what you want to see,
Yourself distorted in the pane.
You shatter the glass,
And the shards make you bleed.
 
Do you feel the pain that you have caused yourself?
 
This imaginary world where fish soar eagles and unicorns abound,
The realm where you withdraw to when your heart is in pain--
When you go there, how do you get out?
Or do you dwell there forever until the world that betrayed your conceptions has passed?
 
You breathed life into me, your Creation,
So that you might be consoled and comforted,
For you lack a mother's kiss and a father's bliss,
But then you blink, and
I fade away, evanescing,
And as I came, I went away.

Bio: Echo Danae Wood graduated from Leander High School in 2005 and lives with her loving family in a small suburb just north of Austin, Texas.  She has just returned from a year abroad in Taiwan as an exchange student with Rotary International.  Since her freshman year in high school, Echo has been writing poetry.  She looks forward to college in fall 2007.