Independence Challenge Winner

Well thanks so much for participating in my quickie Independence Day Challenge all......Proud to pronounce are winner

With 4 votes......Maryanne and her poem Lantern!!

#3 Lantern.

Was it that long ago I was restricted,
by soldiers of our country wearing
badges I turned away from,
to give my life for another in the womb?

I now face each storm arising among
the unpredictable desert winds.
But I know independence-
it is unable to be redefined for it
is our very soul that it exists to shine through.
Independence, to raise my children
in soil not bound by regulations as to
how many breaths can be blossomed
from our home.

My daughter's daughter was days
away from liberation,
but now she is a lost voice
still being searched for in lonely
hours where a hero is needed.

An emerald stone stood surely around
her ring finger,
while time kept guessing when beauty
would betray a soul striving for
freedom to be acknowledged,
as the most beautiful art.

Confinement. Incarceration. Liberty...
The chronometer precisely counting
memories as it stood at the windowsill
while my granddaughter became Death,
but not its shadow.

She was a lightning bug
caught up 'tween winter's passage,
and her light is no longer stuck,

it's burning for all of earth
to open their eyes and no longer
settle for making peace
with darkness.
---------------

Second place with 3 votes...goes to...........Tara Kay and her poem:

#4 Conversations with Freedom

The night keeps you fumbling
on left over portions
of a conversation, while fireflies
hang wingless from the moon as it bares
down upon empty streets.

There are no footsteps treading the
corridors of our town, and existence is
to be kept in the stitches of a duvet,
between the rubble of our sins,
and the pages of a passport,
for we are detained as half baked and impractical,
yet unfettered are our souls.

There are moments when we approach
the thread and ponder on unravelling
what we cannot express, but our shadows
drag us back to comforting rooms and
unopened windows, draped in topaz curtains and
smudged with urgent fingerprints.

There is always someone beside you, or half a step behind,
wedging you in yesterday and the first chapter of independence
lies unwritten in a suitcase that's yet to be made.

And the night hides a diamond, but you are oblivious,
for if you'd touch your skin with love, you'd see
just how precious you really are.

You wouldn't stay and let life bound you to the walls.

Well done all 5 of ya!

Oh gosh, was not expecting this whatsoever! Thank you Chels for the fun idea, had a blast and these poems were beautiful! Congrats to everyone :]

Tara, right when I read "the rubble of our sins" I just KNEW it was you lol!! Loved your write so much

Congrats Maryanne & Tara! Both BEAUTIFUL pieces! <3

Congrats MaryAnne and Tara Kay!

Congrats MaryAnne & Tara:)

Thank you!!
Congratulations MaryAnne, That piece just blew me away!!,
as it all the writes for this.

And yes, MA, I was listening to Pompeii when I wrote this :)

Nice going both of you.