If I die in a war zone
Box me up and send me home
Put my metals on my chest
And tell my mom I did my best,
Tell my dad not to bow,
He will never get tension
from me now
Tell my brother to study perfectly
Keys of my bike will be his permanently,
Tell my sister don’t be upset
Her brother will not rise after this sunset
Tell my love not to cry
Because I’m A Soldier Born to Die
The Mind is like
a beautiful sea
filled with debris
and old dreams
and hard to reach
So we search in shallow rivers
that hold cheap pleasures
but they rot our souls
because they aren’t real
-Leobart
by Naomi Shihab-Nye
It is not so much that the boat passed
and you failed to notice it.
It is more like the boat stopping
directly outside your bedroom window,
the captain blowing the signal-horn,
the band playing a rousing march.
The boat shouted, waving bright flags,
its silver hull blinding in the sunlight.
But you had this idea you were going by train.
You kept checking the time-table,
digging for tracks.
And the boat got tired of you,
so tired it pulled up the anchor
and raised the ramp.
The boat bobbed into the distance,
shrinking like a toy—
at which point you probably realized
you had always loved the sea.