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This week’s prompt: Do-over. You are granted the gift of one do-over from your past. What would it be? Why?

Also, we offer poetry written by students of Crossroads Academy in Lyme, in tribute to the memory of Emily Dickinson, whose birthday falls on Tuesday.

Prompt: Do-over

Lost time, lost opportunities

By Isabelle Chen

Age 15, Bradford, Vt.

“If you could have one do-over in life, what would it be?”

My mind suddenly starts whirling at the question

as I remember moments that brought me embarrassment,

along with a tinted, rosy color plastered onto my cheeks and face.

But then I think of the opportunities I’ve missed, too, all because I doubted myself.

I guess it’s true what they say: Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.

I would stand idly by the sidelines whenever an opportunity popped up —

I’d want to take my shot, but the shot would never leave my hand.

And as opportunities drifted away, regret would make itself present inside me.

I’d begin to feel my regret stronger than my embarrassment.

So if I had one do-over, it would be to sign up for that team,

talk to that person, go on that adventure, apply for that contest.

So many opportunities have been missed, have slipped away on my part.

What could’ve been is unknown to me, but now in the present I will make up for lost time

by snatching at the new opportunities presenting themselves to me.

Prompt: Emily Dickinson

They rest — rose petals

By Hannah Malin-Stremlau

Age13, Windsor

They rest — rose petals

Settling to the ground

They sleep — stardust

Floating without a sound

It feels as if these crystals

Could drift away — right now

Carried by the wind

They disappear — somehow

They rest — between windowpanes

They rest — atop the trees

The entire world — concealed within —

A dazzling — delicate — freeze —

Give me the Moon in a jar —

By David Viazmenski

Age 12, Lebanon

Give me the Moon in a jar —

So I can place it upon my hearth —

And think of the night’s Sun —

Bright star — light of the Earth —

Distant light — Silver spectacle —

Illuminate — stay with me —

Shimmering in my room —

Sliver of possibility!