Poems by Elvie Underwood

The purpose of poetry is to write freely

Elvie enjoys both reading and writing poetry. Her favorite poems are “Ox Cart Man” by Donald Hall and “Enough” by Suzanne Buffam.
She also likes the works of Edgar Allen Poe, Gwendolyn Brooks, Dylan Thomas and Langston Hughes. Elvie believes the purpose of poetry is to write freely without the constraints of grammar.

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Summertime
By Elvie Underwood

We walked through tall sharp grass
Blades alive with bugs and heavy with the morning's dew
Not following the dusty trails but
Making our own way across the field
We ran down a twisted path
Bare, dirty feet tripping over roots and rocks
Snuck into the empty house to abscond with sodas and bread
Grasshoppers and flowers snuck into our lunchboxes
Packed lovingly with fruit, sandwiches,
And Grandma's homemade cookies
Eaten in the shade of a chokecherry tree
We hid in the woods, lush and green
Full of birds, bushes heavy with raspberries and roses
Whispered conversations in the safety of the trees
Sitting on a log only we knew how to find
The world slowly disappeared
Until only that verdant field remained

The Last Cheetah
By Elvie Underwood

A cheetah searches for me in the barren desert
Where my thirsty footsteps lace the sand
He runs by the baobab tree where hungry vultures rest
Past the vanishing oasis
And among toppled worlds
Where sandstorms ravage empty neighborhoods
Until he finds me standing
In a shallow canyon that stretches for miles and miles
Of waterless ground
Here we meet
I, the half dead vagabond
And he, the last cheetah
Implores me with crying eyes
He speaks to me
And I answer