top of page

THE POET EMERGES

By John Grey

PROMPT — The way I see it ...

What was done to the smallest

was done to you

in grades one through six.


You needed only to look twice

at a bigger boy

and he’d threaten to snap you

like a twig.


You spent little time in the playground

but hours in the woods and fields

watching everything grow.


The grass reached your knees

and the butterfly,

your outstretched hand.


With the advent of beauty,

you were you for life.

 

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, New English Review and Tenth Muse. His latest books include Subject Matters, Between Two Fires and Covert. John has work coming up in Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Amazing Stories, and River and South. He writes from Johnston, RI.

Comments


SUBSCRIBE TO THE

JOURNAL OF EXPRESSIVE WRITING

Thanks for subscribing!

© 2025. All rights reserved. Journal of Expressive Writing. Cambridge, MA, USA.
We do not partake in the use of social media as we feel it is antithetical to the mission of the Journal.

bottom of page