CT#1 a deciding moment

Leilani Doktor
Eng 2AB
11:30 Haldmen
Critical Thinking Journal #1
A Deciding Moment
8.29.07A Parking Space Taken
I'm sitting in a car left alone to wait,
Across white lines another in the same dilemma.
I stare compromising my illusion of disinterest.
How can I ignore another human in the exact same situation?
But are we really the same?
Why are you sitting in the passengers seat?
Are you listening to music?
Or if you're just as interested in me as I am in you.
We were forced into this situation parked cars, face to face.
A mental connection,
And I have decided to never make it physical.
8.30.07A Crowded Reception
I walk, I observe, I absorb.
My eyes guiding, my feet following, my mind reeling.
Around and around I go.
But I spy; I spy with my little eye
A person out of place, people
I'm in an art gallery, an exhibit of humans.
Yet three figures aren't right.
Could it be their clothes? No, I shouldn't judge.
Could it be their sullen faces? No, anyone could be tired in this world.
Or is it the peculiar bulges under their jackets? Yes, what am I witnessing?
Kids no older than me, with familiar green glass bottles peeking out of dirty jackets.
They weave through the crowd as I stand behind a shattered pot.
But a hunched over posture gives away their little trick
Three shadows glide over the paintings, and over the threshold.
The tension is lifted, it is raining outside, and three people are gone.
No one noticed, I decided to not speak a word,
Reflection:
In the past few days the reality that life is made of moments has become painfully obvious. That is how I came to the decision to write this poem, I wrote what had stuck so clearly in my mind over a two-day period.
The first stanza was inspired by my situation of being left in the car of the Costco parking lot. Surprisingly another car pulled in across from me in the same situation. Once both of us in our separate vehicles had come to realize we could not escape each other it became a game of cat and mouse. It brought to mind the idea of," looking through a glass window." In those few moments of forced attentiveness to a person I had no inkling of knowledge about and doubted I ever would, I realized that this was how people are brought together. Forced together in twisted ways of fate, is how you meet people. And a shared situation is what brings human kind together, the feeling of similarity. Once knowing this there is two options you can accept it or reject it. It is a deciding moment in your life, are you going to attempt to build on your shared connection or leave it be? This is my underlying theme, which led me to end the poem with what I decided.
The second stanza was a little bit more of what I was doing physically as well as what I was thinking in the moment. I was inspired by my experience with an art show and how I witnessed kids my age stealing alcohol from the exhibit. I was shocked by their necessity to steal alcohol, and I was even more shocked that none of the adults in the show had even noticed. These kids stood out so clearly for me it was like a game of I spy, and I watched as they left the room one by one even in the crowd I could pick out each footstep the feeling emanating from their bodies caused me to watch I feel their heart beats, the anxiety, and the excitement, but in their hunched over postures and sullen eyes I could see the hint of shame. After they were gone all I could think was where are they going? And do they have homes? I felt impartial to their theft but could not help but worry. In the end of my deciding moment I did not say anything about those happenings, because it was one of compassion why make hype when those kids were already long gone. It inspired me to do something compassionate, and yet I feel as if there really wasn’t any decision that could have made that would have aided the event.

7 Ways of Looking at an Egg

Leilani Doktor
Eng 2AB
Haldmen 11:30
7 Ways of Looking at an Egg
I
There is a dark coop
A mass of hay and feathers
Hidden in the disarray
A single gleaming egg

II
The swirls of yellow mingle and swirl about
The burning, desolate, plain of black.
Slowly the liquid transforms to hills
The scenery drenched in the color of sun.
Just as the one rising over the horizon,
Rays shining on the scrambled egg.

III
A mother cuddles her kin
Love swells filling the air.
A mother nestles her eggs
Her care and delicacy moving.


IV
One did not stir.
I did not hear the last violin in the symphony.
There were 12 eggs,
But only 11 chicks.

V
A boy ran, burden on his shoulders.
But its all in fun and games
The impertinence of making it to the end
Since it is only a spoon and egg relay.

VI
Masked devils snicker at the evil they have concocted
Elders discouragingly frown
Infants and toddlers a like scream in fear, squeal in amusement
A shelter, A house, A home
Has been egged.





VII
A heart beats, flutters, quicken with each second
Within its porcelain case.
The outside world savage and belligerent
The shell shatters
An empty egg left....