JOSEPHINE VANDORSA

The Green and I     By Josephine Vandorsa

When the grey wind rages through the valley

and the rain releases its wrath upon the vast moor;

The crops and fruit they spoiled aplenty

and the roots of great sentinels they tore.

Even the highest of mountains weep with fear,

for rivers of mud, consuming all in its way as it goes

are the tears they bear.

Oh, what powerful brothers, the wind and the rain!

Oh, the vilest of bandits, the wind and the rain!

Wherever they go, ruins lay in their wake.

But there, a tiny patch of green afar!

The wind tries to sweep it up within its talons

yet the green presses its flexible self tightly against mother earth, out of the wind’s reach.

The rain then attempts to drown it with gallons

yet the green sways at ease along with the flow, not in the least breached.

With a howl, the wind retreats, and

its companion, the spiteful rain, with a roar.

Tranquility returns, and the grass stands straight and proud.

And it’s in that very same moor, where I can be found.

 

 

This is an assingment of the chapter "Figurative Language 2---Symbol and Allegory". A symbol may be defined as something more than what it is. (Sound and Sense) 

In this assignment, every student is asked to find something that can be used as a symbol of him or herself and deliver it through a poem. In this poem, I appeared to be refering to grass and its tenacity and how even the strong winds and heavy rain can't destroy it. The one I'm implying, through this, is me. I'm a person who persists, even in the hardest of times and in the foulest of luck. I have always prided myself in being a person who is able to take failures positively and turning it into a chance of making my self better. My perspective of life, can be presented through a single blade of grass. You may have played with grass once, and find it hard to tug away from the earth, regardless of how fragile it may seem. If you tug at it forcefully, you may even end up cutting your fingers. Even if you succeeded in plucking it away from the earth, it returns again, after several days, for its roots are deep in the ground where you can't see it, and if the root is there, it will always be there.

This is what a tiny blade of grass is capable of. Small as it may be in the eye of many, its vitality and potential fecundity is not to be underestimated. It follows the flow of life, and let life carry it on its way, instead of fighting it in the face. When brutally treated, it simply lowers it head and waits for the force to end, and after that, it rises up, uncathed and stronger than before. I suppose this is who I am and who I will always be---a blade of grass.