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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 11, 1986)
LIVING You smell of sunshine and engine grease dirty clean sw eat and honest w ork Drops of salt sw eet dampness trail slowly down your hot flushed face cool caressing fingers of comfort in the afternoon sun Eves narrowed to slits forehead darkly frowning as you struggle just a dirty hot man fixing a broken car .rmlthough Jennifer Cu- rington says she’s been writing poetry on her own for years, her poem “Living,” accepted in Bra zos, was written for a creative writing class. “I wrote it because I had to,” she says. “We had to try and write a picture, I think the as signment was.” But Curington, a senior En glish major from Houston, says she has to write poetry for her self, too. “It just comes out and and I write it,” she says. “It’s a way of expressing myself.” Children When you are taller than something, you must look down to see it. Even if one is not actually taller, but only thinks so, looking down can become a comfortable habit. One may look up, only briefly, only to become more comforted in the correctness of looking down. What a joy to be but three feet tall once more, a child never looks down. Walking is a recent skill, one that should cause concern, yet on they plod blithley ahead looking up all the time. If told to w atch their step they only disobey more, talking to themselves, playing in the rain, looking, living, and wondering while rarely noticing, their feet slowly turning into clay. tries, including “Children,” which reminded him of the im poverished children he’d seen in other countries. He says seeing these children helped him real ize how spoiled he is and gave him a topic to write about. .Oradford Williams sub mitted three poems to the con test, “Shadow Boxing,” “At Home Alone” and “Children.” Most of his poems reflect his travels to Third World coun The Answer Involved Several ladies Sat about In several chairs Sharing their several doubts. ‘It is as if,’ one said. She meant every word With all her heart And all her soul. She meant what she said, And having said it She was gratified To know that ‘as if Was the point of conten tion. ‘Several times in the last weeks I have wondered. Having done so All I could imagine be came as if It were real,’ replied her friend. ‘Several times,’ she said again. And the first with ‘As if?’ Foremost on her tongue, Held to her discretion Bracing her tea with brandy. ‘Could it be,’ the first said at last, ‘That everything that is real is As if you imagined it?’ The other wondered For a pausing lifetime, Then looked up With sadness And said, ‘Yes, I’m sure it is.’ Paul Stewart submitted the poem “The Answer Invol ved.” The poem is about whether what you see and feel is real and whether it matters, he says. The idea for the poem came from a book he was reading. In the book, the author put the idea forward that no matter if there’s a God or not, a reli gious person will always see beauty in life because they be lieve God cheated it. > i