2011 Student Writing Awards Booklet - Santa Fe Community College

Poetry Runner-Up
Gabriel Tafoya
Live and Love
Miniscule sapling, frail and weak
Swayed by the wind, no lips to speak.
Hands are held but no words uttered
Just comprehension without a mutter.
Dependent on its circumstance
Eluded by current romance.
With time and effort now a plant
More knowledgeable, with language to chant.
Eludes tragedy by being flexible
It bends, not breaks, its weary soul.
Still not aware of world around
Adorned with majesty abound,
Dwelling in earthen decadence
Trying to be strong through resilience.
Now next comes, as science shows,
A fertile tree will someday grow
Rooted deeply in the earth
Gathering its own nutrients from the dirt.
Independent as it once craved
To do as it wills, nobody’s slave.
It now knows of the surrounding world
And sees both beauty and atrocity unfurled.
Its end is near its journey done
Too weary now to feel the sun
Life no longer permeates through
That hollow shell now misconstrued.
Silenced now in oldest age
Taking the last bow on life’s stage.
It loves no more though love once strong
Brought life and now has gone so wrong.
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