Response to a seventh grader's "You can't write a poem in 15 minutes" Challenge

Had a cheeky middle schooler declare one day  that no one could write a poem in 15 minutes. Here was my answer in less than 15 minutes, and he didn't have much to say after that.

The Vine

Stretching, twisting from earth to sky

Young tender vines turn green then die

As part of God’s eternal plan of life and death and life again.

The vine’s brief life of toil and strife

Are pictures of man’s troubled life

Of work and toil and often fear

Made real by our attachments here.

The earth on which our feet now stand

Hints only of a better land

Where toil and strife and death must die,

Our hallowed land beyond the sky.