Poetry Hobby

today at camp i ran the poetry hobby.
my group and i walked behind the other hobby groups who were on their way to see the chickens or walking in the stream, looking for bugs.
i told my group 'hide in the trees, eavesdrop and write down interesting things that people say."

here are some things i wrote... im not sure if theyre poems. maybe just thoughts pretending (by way of line breaks) to be poems.

Free Swim
Today while we were swimming,
I noticed the way the water moved around the children.
And the way it moved around me was different.

The water and the day adjusted their color and texture or temperature
as they moved between us they knew
how to be the children's present, and all at once,
my past.


We stood on the bridge and they walked below us, their crocks in the stream, looking at bugs, we leaned on the railings and listened to them
I hear a crinkling water bottle that someone is crushing in their hands
it matches exactly the sound of wet sticks breaking under thier feet.
"who are you?"
"we're poetry"
...walking in the stream like they are doing is called 'mucking'
"are you going to write about us?" he asks looking right at me, i smile.
They muck away, their voices and splashes fade.

The little girl wearing the yellow crocheed top
does not belong to the camp.
she's all alone
no one is ever alone here
we take a buddy and councilor to move an inch away from the group
The little girl is hanging from the higher railing and swinging her legs
back and forth, dangerously teetering on the edge of the bridge.
I see my fellow councilor swallow her warning, 'this girl does not belong to us.'
and then the little outsider darts away, following the call of a mother who i didnt hear and cannot see but who
im sure, is just out of site, at the top of the stairs on the bank... hiding up a tree...

overheard:
(i love taking things out of context)
"hey, over here. i have a perfect one for it."
"if you have a net please hand it off now to someone who does not have a net."
"i have a dead one and a live one eating a dead one!"
"look. i got bug bites. no. thats pen i drew on my bug bites."
"they look like nature people"
"fake plastic rubber bands"
"here come the chicken people"