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POETRY Love Reality Reality is a veil… What is fiction, what is real ? “Some things are fact,” the People say, “Others impossible.” But I think nothing, no matter how unreal, is impossible. “You cannot do that,”They gibber on. “No one has before, and no one ever will.” But, alas, They are wasting Their breath. This only challenges me, for nothing is “impossible.” The greatest inventors, I respond, Were thought to be crackpots at first. “How could this ever exist,”They say. But this merely spurs me on To search the world, and prove Them wrong. Things exist that we cannot see, and the People say, “Seeing is believing,” but, alas, They are to be pitied, For seeing is only an illusion. What really exists can be felt, in the air, all around us Life is blossoming, the air is humming with all that cannot be seen. Reality is a cloak… The more People see ideas that disturb Them, supernatural things, They pull the cloak tighter around Them, defining what is possible and what is not, hindering Themselves. But I respond, if”supernatural” things are there, all around us, then they must be natural, I say, And They argue, “But that is not of nature. It is unnatural, weird, freakish.” To which I say, everything is of nature. Break free the cloak of definition! Anything can happen; nothing is impossible! Do not let yourself be bogged down in the murky, impassable depths of what is “possible” or not. True freedom is believing in the impossible… Break free, and soar Soar amid the blue skies of the impossible… Love comes from far away. It comes from the distance, The distant corners of the universe. There it will dwell, Until we call on it, Until we ask it to come and soothe us. It will come. It will stay. It will work its way into your heart. It will heal your pain, Your anger, Your sadness. It is a piece of majestic fabric, Wrapping around you, And all who are close to you. Pouring into invisible gaps, Gaps you never knew you had, Any gaps that need to be filled. It will not falter. It will come. Silently. Yet it hides from those who hate. It will not help them now. Not now… They have to come for it, To call on it, To realize they need it. Everyone needs it. Love comes. From distant corners of the universe. From far away. Love comes. Sasha Waldman, 8th grade Shea Herlihy-Abba, 5th grade We celebrate the wisdom of young voices in this issue. Shea Herlihy-Abba was a fifth-grader last year at St. Johns School in Houston. His poem moved me deeply since the daily “realities” of our current world feel deeply questionable. We need inventors NOW, don’t we? Please, human race, may someone invent more imaginative ways for all these large problems to be solved! Thank you, Shea.Your poem comforted me. And thanks to your wonderful school librarian Sue McGown who sent it my way. Sasha Woldman emigrated from Novosibirsk, Russia when she was 6 years old. She recently completed her 8th grade year in the Magnet Program at Kealing Junior High School in Austin. As she was forming her idea for a poem, her thoughts about what love must be like “spilled onto the paper.” Sasha edited her poem more than once and gave it to me when the terrific Jeanne Goka invited me to visit her excellent school last April. Naomi Shihab Nye 6121/02 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 21