By Winter

Rebecca Luxton, 10, a sixth-grader at Oak School in Los Altos, received second prize in the 10 and under category in the December Cricket League poetry competition for her poem “Winter.” She is the daughter of Gary and Susan Luxton of Mountain View,

Luxton’s poem appeared in the March issue of Cricket, a publication of the Carus Publishing Company, which features the best short stories, poems and articles by the world’s finest children’s authors.

Rebecca Luxton

Skeletons of trees

claw at the grayish, foreboding sky

a sense of dread

seeps through the stormy atmosphere,

sparse patches of weathered grass

hurl themselves down, bowing

to the monarch who occupies

the throne of Winter:

the harsh wind

forcing all his subjects down on their knees.

Willow branches sway

like eerie, windblown dancers

while the wind writhes in silent fury

sending gusts of terror

anrily, desperately trying

to compel all living things

to bend at his will.

There is one hope

a lingering hope

a powerful hope

the hope of

Spring.