Carley Carmen Chavez-Williamson, age 15

New Mexico

“My Backyard” started as a WriteGirl poetry exercise. I have never written a poem before, but WriteGirl pushed me out of my comfort zone, and I became inspired to keep working. Now I have a beautiful poem to share!

My Backyard

The expanse of lands stops
at a rickety fence where a pit bull paces.
The garden withered and full
of dead leaves.
The ground paved over in red squares,
sand scattered from an old sandbox.
Swings sag under the weight of a girl
no longer a child.
It is a place to rest, a place to laugh.
Read here on a hammock, and the story
becomes as real as memories.
The wind creaks the treehouse,
the rain goes down the slide like a
toddler for the first time.
People who live here laugh with one another,
never strangers in the yard.
Stay in the backyard.
Play in the backyard.
Safer than any place you ever will know.