The Poetry Well is a monthly column that showcases island poetry. This month includes a poem by Anders Blomgren.

The Things They Now Carry

This poem carries purpose like I try

Carrying yellow file folders of bubble

Test sheets, PSAT Administrator booklets,

And unsharpened pencils. They carried anxieties.

And the weight of the morning hue.

We all want

to carry posture, like my students

Practicing mindfulness — minds full of heres and nows,

Leaves and rivers, histories erased like the answer

To section II, #3 and their most recent text.

But it’s best to guess,

Apparently. Educated of course

They carry hope

On their backs with their books,

and a glimmer in their eyes

The size of their zodiac signs —

They and I stride outside in the afternoon blush,

Backpacks leaning cockeyed on the wall.

We carried nothing.

Blomgren grew up on Vashon, went to Vashon High School (VHS) and Simon Fraser University, where he studied English, history and philosophy, and was an All-American wrestler. He teaches English and physical education at VHS and McMurray Middle School and coaches wrestling with his brother Per-Lars. He is married to Sarah Bunch and has two stepdaughters, Bella and Letta. The poem he chose to publish honors several of his writing instructors: George Bowering, Kim Addonizio, Robert Wrigley, who anointed him the “Shy Rapper,” and Gary Lilley, who said he “walks language likes it’s his dog.” Blomgren also enjoys writing comedy, making speeches and giving performances.