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      June 29, 2024Abecedarian for the Horses in a Trailer on Route 66Claire Beeli

      above the hood of this
      beetle of a car, the sky
      carries itself lightly. hugely. blue. i
      don’t know where we’re going. i don’t think you do,
      either, with your fine
      ears like the ends of mustaches and your
      eyes, round and dark and as slow to
      fall as the night. i don’t know where we’re
      going but i don’t think it’s there. we can’t
      grieve yet because we don’t know what for. because we don’t know
      how it even began;
      how to even begin. the desert here could be enough,
      i think, for us. if we could
      just tilt the wheel a bit too far right, to
      knife through the barriers
      like the rain, when it comes. i can’t stay here.
      my legs ache from disuse and i keep
      nudging the early sky but it won’t wake. there,
      over the ridge somewhere, could be a herd, a
      place for us to go. for the taste of air beyond this
      quiet, far from this soft rush of
      rubber on the morning. you could
      start with your hooves in the sands and
      the sun on your coat, light
      unfiltered by the windows of this dark
      van. i could start without sunscreen, with
      waves of heat that hold me like a womb.
      we can start here, if you want. there is no numbered-lettered
      exit. there is no too late, no number of
      years. there is only now, and the wheel, and the
      yell that is pounding hooves, and the hot
      zenith of living,
      so free it hurts.

       

      from 2024 RYPA

      Claire Beeli (age 15)

      Why do you like to write poetry?

      “I write poetry as a sort of record, and as a medium for working out complex ideas. Each image, clever phrase, and stanza becomes a permanent record of a thought, an emotion I’ve observed, or an experience I’ve had, rendering them immortal. I’d like to think that I’ll be able to look back in 10, 20, or even 50 years to what I’ve written as a teenager and recognize each poem as a time capsule. I use writing to tease out the connections between varied, nuanced concepts, too—to form unlikely pairings of images and ideas or work out the kinks in a kind of philosophical argument. To me, it’s the most useful art form there is.”

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