Mr. Priston, Jack, did in fact show me a few of his poems like he promised. There were many dark ones and lots of sadness. I liked everything he wrote. He is a great writer and an eloquent poet. One poem stuck out to me and I immediately loved it. It’s a story of its own outside of the idea he is writing about his father. There is symbolism that is pretty; I don’t just like it because its tone is happier, but it is unique.


Maple Seeds

The sapling that once grew in the yard
Fell from the magnificent maple tree.
But as the years pass,
The parent tree perished
And the saplings grew into their own.

They experience so much,
Watching time go by;
Changing from green innocence
To trees of knowledge.

They then have their own seeds fall
And fertilize mother earth,
But soon the once saplings become few
And the leafy structure fears what he always knew.

One-day father tree will have left this world,
And little saplings will carry the legacy.
But wait!
There is so much to gain
And so little time.
Why does it have to end?
Why can’t we live forever?

Every creature understands it,
But it doesn’t sink in
Until the hard lesson has to be learned:
Nothing ever lasts forever.

After I look up from the papers I smile. “They’re beautiful, all of them.”
“Have a favorite?”
“’Maple Seeds’. It’s different”, I smirk.
“I wrote it recently when I was in a happier mood.”
“I can tell”, I say, knowing he was referring to me. I pause for a moment, thinking about how I want to phrase my question. “Jack?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think you could write me a letter of recommendation?”
He smiles. “I would be honored to. You need one for applying to colleges, right?”
“Yes”, I say grinning, so happy that he would write one for me. I know that he is going to praise me and say magnificent things about me as a student and as a person.
“What colleges are you planning on applying to?”
“I don’t know yet, but probably some of the in-state colleges; something close by. I mean, if I can get a scholarship. I can’t really afford a university and if I can get in for free, or close to, that would be nice, but otherwise I would go to community college.”
“How about your major? Do you know what you want to be?”
“No clue.”
“Well, that’s okay. I didn’t know that I wanted to be a teacher. I just really loved reading and writing, so I majored in English. Maybe you want to be a writer? Journalist? Teacher?”
I laugh. “I don’t think I have the talent, ability, or patience to be any of those.”
“You are so quick to bring yourself down.”
“It’s not that, it’s just I’m not confident in my abilities. Take homework for example. Homework is concrete. I do it to the best of my abilities and it is good. But drawing or writing is just not the same. It’s abstract. I just think that there are people that are better than me, and I don’t have the natural talent that they might have. Some people have their niche already and I don’t just yet.”
“That’s not the type of attitude you should have. You have so much going for you that you can’t even see because you are oblivious to it.”
“Yeah, sure. Like what?”
“For one thing, you are able to write well, and I’m not just saying this, but your mind is very creative. You know what you want to say and you say it. You are also an extremely bright student. Your attitude is still great even with all the things you have to deal with and you are determined and strong. There are so many more that you won’t even think of.”
“Care to share? Or is it not ‘appropriate’?”
He chuckles and looks down at the ground. “You are sweet and kind. You are different from a lot of the students that I have seen pass through here. You don’t know how pretty you are, or even how good you can be at writing if you kept cultivating it. You take criticism well. And when people compliment you, you think they are just being nice, not sincere, unless they are extremely close to you. When they become that close to you, they are yours for life. Not many people have gotten that close to you.”
Wow. That was the first time he ever complimented me about my appearance. He has me figured out. That whole compliment and close friends thing is so true. And as sad as it sounds, no one has ever gotten that close to me, and Jack has gotten the farthest. His whole speech about me just makes me feel so good, and I can’t help but to blush and grin! “I can tell you’re going to write me a great letter of recommendation.”
“Oh, it will be. I’ve got a lot to say.”
After the wonderful heart-to-heart, I decide to continue to write. My composition book starts to be filled with colorful ink with the varying poetry and constant doodling. The notebook is being filled with all my thoughts and is almost just as personal as a diary. I wouldn’t know what to do if it got into the wrong hands, but it did.