Creative Writing

What follows is some of the few poems that survived my high school days. The original title of this series was: Creative Writing Across the Street From the School in Front of the Mansion.

In its early years, there was a ferry that went from Rochester, New York to our little harbour, allowing several rich American families to summer here. These Americans built beautiful, sprawling mansions only three of which (that I know of) still survive to this day. And one of them, to the shame of our town, is being allowed to fall into ruin so it can be pulled down and replaced with condos.

Anyway, while I was in high school one of these mansions was still across the street from the school but I can’t remember if it was still occupied at the time. But I do recall the English teacher sent us outside to find inspiration for our creative writing class and this is what I came up with:


The spider crawled carefully
up one blade of grass and
down again, only to discover
a forest of others.

The gentle breeze
Touched the fuzz
On the leaves
And invited them
to play.

The once green leaf
Is now old and faded
Changed in colour
And cracked with age.
Its edges are curled
As if with distaste
At the thought of
The coming winter.

Where did you come from
Little spider who scurries
Along the length of my page?
Wherever it is
I’ll put you back there
With the edge of the leaf
In my hand.

The helicopter passed
Eggbeaters at both ends
An intruder in the sky.