Sophia Cannizzaro, a freshman who is homeschooled in West Glover, wrote this poem in response to a Young Writers Project prompt to include the sentence, “… and that’s when everything changed” in a story or poem.
That’s When Everything Changed
By Sophia Cannizzaro
Grade 9, Homeschool, West Glover
When the clouds floated across the sky
passing by the sun,
which bestowed halos of light
around their edges,
showing me that if you move slowly, carefully,
it's possible to be near things that are capable
of inflicting pain
when the trees started their line dance,
swaying a little bit this way,
a little bit that way,
showing me that you can plant yourself in one place
and still move
when the blades of grass in the field
rose, stood, and bent as one
filling the air with a gentle, but persistent sound,
showing me that as a community
we have a voice
that's when the tracks clicked the other way
and I chose family
over money,
short-term happiness
over long-term work,
friends
over colleagues.
I chose myself.
