Poem by a 12 year old student

    Five years ago I had conducted a five day Creative Writing workshop for a group of teenagers. Most of them were over the age of 15 but there was this small little thing who was just twelve and who insisted on signing up for the course. I wondered how she would manage to keep up with other boys and girls who had already finished their schooling and were about to enter college. Well, let me tell you that during the course of those five days she surprised us all, and possibly even herself.
   On the fourth day I gave the students an assignment. They had to take this first line from this Emily Dickinson poem - 'Bring me the sunset in a cup' and write their own poem. This is what twelve year old Nabeela submitted.

Bring me the sunset in a cup
The moonlight in a dish
To achieve the impossible
Is my only wish

A ray of dawn
A drop of dusk
My dream to soar
Will never rust

And when I sit by the river quiet
Wishing that I had more might
All at once I suddenly see
How big I am depends on me

And so I bring you
My well-learnt advice
You can be however big you wish
Mighty as giants, tiny as mice

I've brought the sunset in a cup
And the moonlight in a dish
I've achieved the impossible
And fulfilled my only wish.
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Good for a twelve year old, don't you think?
 And here's the original by Emily Dickinson

   
Bring me the sunset in a cup,Bring me the sunset in a cup,

Reckon the morning's flagons up

And say how many Dew,

Tell me how far the morning leaps-

Tell me what time the weaver sleeps

Who spun the breadth of blue!Write me how many notes there be

In the new Robin's ecstasy

Among astonished boughs-

How many trips the Tortoise makes-

How many cups the Bee partakes,

The Debauchee of Dews! Also, who laid the Rainbow's piers,

Also, who leads the docile spheres

By withes of supple blue?

Reckon the morning's flagons up

And say how many Dew,

Tell me how far the morning leaps-

Tell me what time the weaver sleeps

Who spun the breadth of blue!Write me how many notes there be

In the new Robin's ecstasy

Among astonished boughs-

How many trips the Tortoise makes-

How many cups the Bee partakes,

The Debauchee of Dews! Also, who laid the Rainbow's piers,

Also, who leads the docile spheres

By withes of supple blue?

Whose fingers string the stalactite-

Who counts the wampum of the night

To see that none is due?Who built this little Alban House

And shut the windows down so close

My spirit cannot see?

Who'll let me out some gala day

With implements to fly away,

Passing Pomposity?