The Hedgehog Issue I: Poetry Collection

Published in

The Hedgehog Literary Journal for Youth

8 min readJun 13, 2020

“The First Chapters Of The Universe” by Brian Li

[The universe was once a marble, bursting with energy, but only just a marble. Then, a perfect accident or some mysterious force helped out our tiny world and it began to grow with a bang, slowly at first, but picking up speed. As some of the first stars formed and as it grew in it’s intense heat, particles smashed into each other and fused, creating more complex elements. Eventually, dark energy, something we know close to nothing about, began making the universe grow faster and faster, until even if in the near future we develop ships that can travel at light speed, we will never reach out of our Local Group (a group of galaxies including Andromeda. This group is pulled together by gravity, and that is why we are not racing away from Andromeda at this very moment). I play out all of this using my imagination in the following]

It started with a glow
In the darkness: it showed
No more than a finger’s width
And it never seemed to grow.

Thousand years it waited
Little, none, had it faded
When it would show itself
’Twas always: seemed shaded

*****

One

a drop

A marble
as my pen
draws a faint line
upon a blank page
filled with the hope of
a start at the start of the road
as the youngling sets off with
a fire and a call and the loneliness
dissipates as dust and the elements
yet unformed come tumbling out and out
and the nothing around it succumbs to
the growing light as round upon round upon round
of a non-existent shadow is illuminated and shone upon
and the interminable surge crashes with wave upon wave upon wave
of the hope for a perfect accident to unbalance the unbalanced unbalance
and motes of dust mix within over and over and over again and again
with an explosion of rust and crimson that burned brightly into the
flowing indigo and azure that sparks a flame of the sea of elements and unites together,
into a sea of a sea that does not exist, and the sea of elements crashes upon sea after sea
as rivers of colour flow and overflow into an overflowing sea as yet another river crashes
and electric waves cover wave after wave of the river and the sea and the colours
until only just a bright sun of suns and stars and moons hover mysteriously over,

And thus the universe was born.

Colours swirl and spiral into a cacophony of systems and galaxies as the swirls swirl and the spirals spiral
as days that are not days and nights that are not nights get longer and longer and longer until
order is established and a semi-peace reigns
over the outside surface of the surface of the universe but
the inner core of the core and the heart of the core melts with the energetic rhythm of the perfect accident accident called Life—

“The Early Bird Gets the Worm” by Melody Xiong

Compared to him, they were petit
Ate more and was always first in line
When the little bird was told by his mother,
It thought the worm would appear simply if it left the nest,
So as his feathers sprouted into gray locust leaves,
His eyes revealing charcoal as it opens,
Remembering what his mother told him,
The worm will be in the same place
The prize
He flew down with spread wings, outlined by a warm glow from the sunlight
There were no worms.

“Spring” by Melody Xiong

The place she sat was under an old oak tree,
The sunlight pierced through the leaves,
Onto her arm and book, leaving bright splotches
It was spring —
A cool breeze swept past her neck,
Leaves danced and swirled,
The birds chirped far away, singing a familiar melody

“Mimi” by Melody Xiong

Orange hair and sweater,
With cheeks paler than snow,
A red necklace around his neck,
Doesn’t talk much and keep to himself,
Others would describe him as an unreadable book,
Likes to keep his chalky skin clean,
By licking

“The Tough Grass” by Richard Mou

Through chilling snow lies one bare grass
Contending against the bitter winds
Grasping firmly to its home
Devoid of warmth

Yet nothing can touch its determined soul
When winds grow friendlier
As light breaks through
The frigid enemy delivers some love
Though peace is within
Innumerable are lost

“Water Droplets” by Richard Mou

The tiny droplets on some leaves
Through winds push and pull
Will never separate
Unless some formidable master
Intentionally compels you to drop
Falls through the air to its doom
Crashes on the coarse surface
Evaporation restores the soul
Of every single desiccated drop
Forms into vapor and joins its foes
Returning to its incipient stage

“Stone, Man, Raft” by Brian Li
Inspired by a nameless poem

A stone, a man, a lonely raft
Drifting, drifting, forever at sea
A stone, a man, a lonely raft
Oh what will become of thee

Watch the gentle ripples of the sea
A fist of fog curls around you
Watch the gentle ripples of the sea
You are not lost, lost one, I gently blew

The sun shines cold rays on you
As it penetrates the chilling fog
The sun shines cold rays on you
And watch as blue turns bleak, grey as bog

You are not lost, simply nowhere
Your oar guides you to yourself
You are not lost, simply nowhere
Your only companion sits on a shelf

A stone, a man, a lonely raft
Drifting, drifting, forever at sea
A stone, a man, a lonely raft
Oh what will become of thee

“Listening for the Fish” by Hao Lun Li

Three birds, one man, one lonely raft
Drifting, drifting, in the ocean
Peaceful, quiet, nothing moving
Listening for the fish.
Three birds, one man, one lonely raft.
Drifting, drifting, in the ocean.

“Don’t Stop” by Hao Lun Li

Running through the trees
Dodging boulders, rocks, and branches
I find myself lost
Nowhere to go
I do not sit
Or stand
Instead I run
And soon enough
I find myself at my destination.

“Where we are from” by Joseph Fan

We are from billion years of evolution
From 24 hours in perspective
We have lived for 3 seconds
But we have done much more in just three seconds
We devastated the world

We are the homo sapiens
The thinking ones
But also the destroying ones
We imprint our footsteps on the Earth everyday
As the carbon is released into the sky

We are from the Mother Earth
We are warmed by her hearth
Like a baby depending on the mother
We are dependent on the Earth

But we are the stubborn ones
When we finally discover how much the Earth has suffered
We try and recover what we can
But the truth finally comes
We cannot keep our species forever

“The Earth” by Joseph Fan

The Earth is an ailing patient
We are the cancer coursing through its veins
Unknown to us we cannot survive without it
The people of this world have done horrific things
The Pure and clean Blue ocean now a chemical brown
The fishes in the environment are gone
As we the selfish people are alike
Thinking about me but not us
Money causes the world to be bloody
As wars are fought over the floors of this world
The mother is ready to give up
As we continue the devastation each and every day
The cancer continues to grow
As we search desperately for the answer
That is right in front of our faces
We continue to look out of our windows
As the patient takes her final breath
We realize our wealth is in the depths
As we also take in our final breaths
For we have led to our own death

“The Back of Your Mind” by Brian Li

They abhorred the abhorrent affables.
There’s something amiss about them.
They’re despondent
for the cover-up ones,
Entreating them to stop, all
because the weak
is for the weak.

Those with them and with the voices
Haunt their fragile souls,
Impelled by the interminable hope to become
One of them. Orthodox.
The irascible “they,” with the profound hate
Reclusive, withdrawn from old guard
.
Hear their reverberating shouts,
The disgusting laughter, horrible voices
Without comprehension.
Ignore the tirades
By the tremulous despicable disgusting “they,”
Because “they,”
are you

“The Life of a Firehawk” by Woojin Lim (Guest Contributor)

The time comes when rivers will dry out
unearthed by sharp fissures, she disappears.
But in time regained she brushes off

Her footsteps, trail of dried plum blossoms, pulling up
film reels of sand valleys and glum lowlands
liquified in poetic witness.

As her feathers melt away, the Firehawk
embraces, as if her blankets, dying embers
crackling and crumbling, re-earthed. Her beak

Breaks off into stardust, painting life anew
melting honeydew, her clouds. Marmalade
puffs ring aloud,

Exceeding herself.

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow;
Learn as if you were to live forever.”

The Hedgehog Issue I: Poetry Collection

Written by The Hedgehog Literary Journal for Youth