These I Have Loved

These I have loved:

Gleaming rocks on a gravel road, reflecting the sun’s rays

My family in the living room, laughing at “Whose Line is it Anyway?”

The soft ears of an old horse

The tales of many, many novels

Brand new shoes on my feet

Hands slapping five in a line on a field

Bouncing diving boards on a scorching summer day

My grandma’s monster cookies

The wagging tale of a golden retriever

Rain water running down a newly made stream

The first scissor cut into a fresh piece of construction paper

Meat on the grill

Soft hands and softer lips

My life

B. Kennedy

Home

Here I built a fort in the tree line and spent hours inside

Here I ran the four-wheeler into a ravine and thought Dad would kill me

Here I watched a flock of turkeys walk across my lawn

Here I hunted rabbits with my loyal companion, Alex

Here I got my foot stuck in the snow for fifteen minutes and cried for ten of them

Here I threw a baseball at an old TV satellite, and it always bounced back perfectly

Here a slippery sandal caused me to fall off of the back of a tractor, busting my knee open

Here I fantasized about being a star football player

Here I worked thousands of head of cattle in the hot summer sun, with the awful smell of

the branding iron bombarding my nostrils

Here I perfected my 3-pointer, and learned how to soar above the rim

Here I let go of the past, and started to figure out who I was going to be, and realized that 

nothing matters more than being happy

Here I asked my parents to forgive me for getting home too late, after a few crazy nights

Here I contemplated where to go to college, and thought I would never come to a decision

Here I realized where I belong, and signed my name on the dotted line

Here I started a new, exciting chapter in my life that is still being written

B. Kennedy

From Here to There

Here is where my cousins and I climbed onto the hay bails and jumped

from bail to bail

Here is where I would go fishing with the boy scouts during the yearly

family scout camp

Here is where people in my class were tricked into believing the sixth

grade girls’ locker room was haunted

Here is where I got my first job as a projectionist at the Gateway Theatre

Here is where I got my liver transplant during the second semester of my

eighth grade year

Here is where I got my first car--a ‘92 Oldsmobile Cutless Ciera S

Here is where I started my freshman year of high school

Here is where I made a lot of new friends--some of the weirdest people

I’ve met

Here is where I backed up into my chorus teacher’s car during my

brother’s graduation reception

Here is where I started my final semester of my high school life

Here is where I will finish my high school life, when I walk across the

stage

Here is where I will say goodbye to all of the friends I’ve made

throughout elementary, middle, and high school

Here is where I will start college to major in culinary

Here is where the start of the rest of my life will begin.

-Lily