Lawyering is changing the world with words, eh? Well there's a broad definition if I've ever seen one. Changing the way the law regards an individual or class of persons, thereby changing the way the law dictates others' interactions with them, is one way to change the world with words. Lawyering? Sure. But what about changing the way an individual perceives another person or class of persons, with that change in perception affecting the way they interact - that's changing the world (at least a tiny portion of it) with words as well. Lawyering? Who knows.

Does it matter? Not really.

This here is a topic thread for student to post their creative works. It will all be open to honest, critical review for the sake of fostering growth and expanding one's mastery of language, as well as open, fawning admiration for the sake of bolstering egos. Because, hey, you probably didn't get the Torts prize...

I'll go first. Please, feel free (encouraged even) to follow with your own work or comments/critiques of others'.

Summer Singers

Today, they are wriggling 
in their translucent strands,  
those unborn summer singers 
strung in the stream 
like lost ellipses, 
struggling to wake.  Some will 
be baked in the sun 
while their damp bed dries 
and the edges harden, 
crack and curl, crisp
while drought drops the level.

There will be, too, 
those that grow 
larger, and little legs 
that let them leap 
beyond the banks 
where there is little enough flowing,
flee from the unfulfilled promises 
spring brings:  the rotting things, 
the wilted wild flowers, 
their purple petals, 
the minnows, their minute movements 
barely stirring the settled sediment, 
the current's choked course,
the encroaching weeds.

There is hope 
some will survive; 
they litter the ground 
peeping and hopping and squashed, 
eating and eaten and starved, 
looking to last until at last 
those that do can swell their throats with song, 
echo all night long 
their longing.