Little Inklings 2025

The flame climbs and claws Its way around the brush It screams and cries in terror And disappears into a bush It waits and ponders in silence And erupts into a flower Which then reveals itself With its hot fiery power It waves at the squirrels But they run away For they cannot withstand The flower’s deadly haze The flower wonders why the shriek It looks into water But the water disappears Into a cloud of steam What do they think of it? Do they think it can slaughter? Think it can ravage land? So the flower goes to ask The lovely beach of sand The flower sheds a tear And the sand picks it up Which then reveals a looking glass Into why they fear They don’t see him as the warm embrace that it knows itself as They see him as a threat To burn them into ash He doesn’t understand So he consults the sea Which tells him he is horrid And the flower too becomes steam A LOOKING GLASS INTO THE UNREACHABLE By Brady Goldberg ’31 24