CYWR Back to School 2022

English Ivy - Mena Shaw
English Ivy
By Mena Shaw
4th Grade
Those climbing tendrils and dark green leaves
A shape I’ve come to recognize
Throughout our cities, streets, and hills...
I’ve noticed also,
What it does...
It climbs on walls and hides the ugly gray from views.
But the other thing is,
It’s strangling, and it’s deadly,
For trees.
The tall, proud, poor tree that standing there,
As ivy comes creeping along,
Growing swooping tendrils
Around their trunks.
It grows higher and higher,
Soon, it obscures the whole tree from sight.
And all that’s left,
Is the lattice of ivy.
Those little ivy leaves,
They cover the tree and the tree’s green leaves
Till the tree slowly starves to death,
In the embrace
Of the killer.
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