This year’s contest asked you to consider the concept of intolerance in nature. How does nature resolve its differences? How does it tolerate the uniqueness between two species? We can learn much from this observation, although it appears much of humanity is too stubborn to pay attention.
Again, he climbs the three-step
step stool, pauses to catch his breath,
then folds his five-foot-four
inches over
then over and scooches
against the bumpy ice.
As a kid I carried fields on my back,
sharecropper’s black cotton, when daddy
wasn’t hoeing welts on it with a strap.
If you wish to be wealthy, duck beneath
the topcoat of a well-dressed river
until you come up with a mossy boot
filled with shiners. Spend them wisely.
If your right hand offends, chop it off,
throw it away. Better for you
to lose one part of yourself than
suffer your whole body to burn.