Ari Orenstein is a junior at St. Louis Park High School and has been playing the flute for 9 years. She studies with Judy Ranheim, who also leads a quartet in which she participates. Ari is the principal chair for the top orchestra in GTCYS. She is also a thespian at her high school, and participates in both cast and crew for productions. In her spare time she enjoys reading, photography, and of course shopping. Ari was a Keren Or winner last year for her prose story, “Grandma Betty.”
Poetry, Grades 10 - 12: First Place
The Four Questions - Ari Orenstein
Are you lost?
Maybe a little
The more I learn
The less I know
The closer I get
The farther away I feel
The more whole I become
The more halves I discover
Along this path of
Broken realities
And scattered egg shells
Filled with the faint sound of piercing eyes
And covered hair that grows
Slower than
A 15 piece family
With less vigor than a song
That draws you into a glowing
Ancient light
Where separation is sweet
And words and music combine into a single soul
More alive than sky full of stars that maps out all life
What is your purpose?
More more more.
Not just more weddings
Or brisses
Or baby namings-
More.
To touch
To feel
To LIVE outside of the snowy bubble of my mind
To leave a mark that survives rain and storms and earthquakes
And time
To mend the broken pieces of the world
And to give and give and give until there is nothing left
But a love that grows
Larger than a wall made of stone
Larger than a dome made of gold
And more humongous than a world of black and white rules
Until all anyone can breathe is love itself
Are you alone?
Off on the other side of the spectrum
Staring at a sea of stony faces
That’s how I would seem
Alone
In the corner of a room full of silent songs
And skirts with no end in sight
And too many children to count
And an endless supply of food and noise
That’s how I would seem
Alone.
But in an ocean of blue doors
And intricate tunnels of ideas
Flowing freely through thin barriers
And melodies that twist and turn at any moment
All I see is light
And all I feel is home
And I am not alone.
Where are you going?
Everywhere and nowhere
Among patches of mystic blue
And hidden alleys
With magical alleys
And forgotten stars
Maybe to a land of milk and honey
Covered in sand and history
Lonely and embraceable and limitless
A land where anything is possible
And nothing is out of reach
Where fingers intertwine with fingers
And wordless minds connect
And all race
And religion
And politics
Is nonsense
Swept away by the infinite abyss of
nothing and everything
Where only tiny grains of truth can survive.