Deerfield Academy
from Two Spiders Maria Candela
ALBANY ROAD
The melody seemed to invade all Cuzco until there was no other sound. It crept through the streets, climbed the walls, and got all tangled up in the electricity cables, where I saw the corpse of a trapped kite. The heavy, languid notes seemed to be engendered by the core of the earth and played in past tense. They filled me with the same irrational fear children feel, and reminded me that I would soon leave Latin America. My usual list of ambitions dissolved in the music.
Albany Road
Fall 2007
The Literary & Art Magazine of Deerfield Academy
Albany Road The Literary & Art Magazine of Deerfield Academy
Fall 2007 DEERFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS
Editors-in-Chief Franรงoise de Saint Phalle & Julia Keller
Literary Editors Matt Buckley Kathryn Clinard Bradley Elkman Josh Krugman
Art Editor Kadie Ross Layout Franรงoise de Saint Phalle Julia Keller Robert Moorhead Kadie Ross
Faculty Advisors Andrea Moorhead & Robert Moorhead
Albany Road would like to thank Mr. Scandling and the English Department for their guidance and support as well all those who submitted to this issue.
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EACH FALL WE JOURNEY BACK TO SCHOOL, leaving behind the comforting familiarity of home to continue Deerfield’s quest. Whether it’s a hug goodbye in a crowded train station or amongst the silhouette of the Buttonball branches, we all begin our journey away the familiar and towards the unknown. No doubt, what we gain amongst the green grass beds and the white snow blankets is just as valuable. While we’ve left home behind, we’ve brought some of it with us too. Often, we leave behind the familiar to find the perfect subject in something we know little about. The ever looming threat of “writers’ block” sends us on a continual search for a muse. As our minds wander, we begin to seek her out behind the overflowing laundry basket in the corner, or even in the snowdrifts outside the window. It is when we circle back, however, through memory and random thought that we find home. Our muse dances between the exponents in our math homework, along the rim of a coffee cup on a rainy day, and in the rivers of our thoughts—where we, the writers feel most at home. The challenge is creating that same home for the reader—a balance of creativity and familiarity. Curl up with a blanket and some good coffee, and may you too, venture home. —JAK & FASP
THE STREETS OF CITIES wrap themselves around a complicated aesthetic. A blur of people dodging puddles and each other, savoring the escaping warmth of opening doors and clutched cups of coffee. They travel through the commotion of the sidewalk, a procession of images, a moving inventory of cultures, languages, styles and opinions—passing shoulder to shoulder with each others lives. We speed through life, communicating in scrawled postit notes, detached emails and crunched down abbreviations. Creativity, in this world, can so often seem abridged. We profess a lack of time and surrender ourselves to a rapidity of thought and action. We walk the length of Albany Road, our thoughts mixed with hurried expectation and lists of things to do. But in the pages of Albany Road, we find moments of quiet, a glimpse at life, not in passing, but frozen—in matte print and glossy pages, typed symbols and captured fragments of novelty. —CPR
FALL 2007 | 3
CONTENTS PROSE Kayla Corcoran
To Laura Jean
12
Clare Henry
Shells and Tide
13
Franรงoise de Saint Phalle
An Untitled Lyrical Ballet
19
Mykhaylo Lemesh
Goodbye
30
Maria Candela
Two Spiders The Whiteness
33 37
Matt Buckley
Ignis Fatuus
41
Josh Krugman
Untitled Untitled
7 32
Hannah Flato
A Service in Edwards County
8
Nora Caplan-Bricker
In April
10
Cambrian Thomas-Adams
Praises
16
Julia Keller
What I Did with a Pair of Scissors
29
First Impressions
42
POETRY
Matt Buckley
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CONTENTS
ART Austin Turner
Street House
Cover
Hannah Flato
Shells
15
Kristin Simmons
Casino Man
18
Caitlin Ardrey
The Path to Le Chou
21
Kat McGowan
Splatters Soyeux
22 23
Jun Taek Lim
M& M’s
24
Amanda Bennett
Pollution Tuning
25 27
Isabel Bird
Turkey Skeleton
26
Kayla Corcoran
Dante: Reproduction of an Image by Etienne Delessert 28
Amy Volz
Balboa Pier
36
Joanne Huang
Nude in Stamp
39
Joanne Kim
Essence of Deerfield
40
Bekey Lee
Pug
43
Catherine Schopp
Reading Man
47
FALL 2007 | 5
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JOSH KRUGMAN
Untitled rollerskating across vinyl sidewalks, hollering hallelujah; hanging calamity on a nail by the door. no it’s better this way and crisscrossed like frayed fabric, or the wakes of aeroplanes: little holes in our little sky. a boat bobs on the daffodil sea. sealions bark, and the sun always sets in a bowl.
FALL 2007 | 7
HANNAH FLATO
A Service in Edwards County Sunday mornings in Edwards County Never meant bobbing arcs or fluffs of sheep, Stained glass or droning sermons. It meant goats. Skinny, mangy Tearing scraggly grass off cedar specked slopes; Watched by a double-named girl In a beaten Ford, partial to spitting, With no shepherd’s cane. I conducted my own service once. Across the chalky caliche road, Before the drop off to sparkling ripples. A skip over the deer’s trodden aisle, I sank to my shoulders in crisp grass, sheltered By arches of graying mesquite. A wilting prickly pear opened its palms to the sun. Could be a cross if you broke off the tuna Protruding bloated from its crown. A screen door rusted open, Momma’s lofty voice beckoning me to Bring in the porch cushions and sheet the leather couch.
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HANNAH FLATO
Neighbors back at the Church of Christ Clicked heels on stone steps and Smoothed pallid pleats for brunch, while We stopped the car in the middle of the river crossing, Folded clothing on the sunbathed hood, And slid down algaed banks for a last dip.
FALL 2007 | 9
NORA CAPLAN-BRICKER
In April On spring mornings when the weather is a finger tapping on the desk, a glimmer through the window, my mother lets it sit in the corner of her eye as she brews her tea— cinnamon— and dips a flaking biscuit. Everything comes out soggy today. As the rain jostles yellow buds into green, she sits in the kitchen, hums. Not me. I don’t wear a coat.
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NORA CAPLAN-BRICKER
On days when the water tries to reclaim us, I walk in the thick rivers, sing.
FALL 2007 | 11
KAYLA CORCORAN
To Laura Jean UNCLE STEVE smashed that bottle, the spilled wine made it look as though the shards of glass had cut open the tiles, causing them to bleed. Pa just stood there, yelling at Auntie, and we watched while Auntie cried in the corner because Pa blamed her, like he always blamed her for everything. The tiles in your kitchenette remind me of those tiles in Uncle Steve’s house. They’re the same white color, except they’re covered in hair from the dog that you’re not allowed to keep in your apartment. The floor is dirty because no one ever cleans it, and my socks turned black when I walked on it earlier today.
W
HEN
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CLARE HENRY
Shells and Tide A. LYRA AND STUART are sitting on the beach at St. Andrews, Scotland. Stuart gives Lyra a pink and cream shell the size of a button. Together they have found 24 shells on the 2 mile long beach. 1/4 of the shells they found are still dripping from the ocean and they gleam sunset colors in the afternoon light. 3/4 of the shells have myriads of little ridges like the ripples of water seeping up the sand 3.47 feet away. 4 of the shells are no bigger than a pinky fingernail; they are golden and purple and remind Lyra of kings. How many shells do Stuart and Lyra leave on the beach? B. WHEN STUART scrunches his feet into the sand they come up wet, with 270 flecks of dark, damp sand clinging to them. When he digs deep enough there will be little muddy pools, 0.3 inches in depth, where the sea lies hidden. The depth of the pools rises as the tide crawls up the beach at a rate of 0.7 inches per 45 seconds. Only 10 minutes before it had seemed so far away, but the tide at St. Andrews always comes in fast, a smooth steady flow of water flooding the wide stripe of sand right up to the grassy dunes. How soon will the North Sea reach Lyra and Stuart? C. 17 ORANGE-FOOTED OYSTERCATCHERS flock and flit over the tide’s edge. They scratch over the sand, leaving paisley patterned footprints for the sea to wash away. The grey blue sky, 2 shades lighter than Lyra’s eyes, leaks February sunlight across the long beaked birds’ chessboard wings and Lyra’s 146,000 strands of hair, diameter measuring 1/1,500 1/500 inches. The breathy breeze, soft for a cold day, lifts up feathers of her hair and sends zebra stripes of shadow over her face. Stuart’s 110,000 hairs, diameter measuring 1/400 - 1/250 inches, lies in heavy waves on his head, the wind barely rippling the dark curls. Lyra draws in the sand, her finger tracing curlicues and whorls through the miniscule rocks and bits of broken shell. Stuart wipes the sand smooth with his palm so she
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CLARE HENRY
can start again. On average, how much thicker is Stuart’s hair than Lyra’s? If the average human scalp is 120 inches2 what is the density of hair on Lyra’s scalp? Stuart’s? D. THE TIDE SLIPS closer, relentless and sly, stealing up the beach, casting up shells and oddments collected in its deep. A pebble, pale sky grey, sits at the sea’s edge, unaware of its imminent submersion. The pebble is an oblate spheroid, with a = 0.7 inches, b= 0.7 inches and c = 0.9 inches. The dark waves lap closer, murmuring, until they touch the pebble. The sea brushes it, just kissing it lightly, and the pebble darkens water staining stone. Lyra tucks the seashell into her pocket, rubbing the silky cream and pink between her fingers. She turns and finds Stuart, who leans closer to whisper, just brushing her cheek as she flushes pink. Remember the formula for Surface Area of Oblate Spheroid, bc2 公 a2-c2
2(c2+b 公a2 = c2 E (S,m) + c
-
where arccos ( a
) = the modular angle,
F (S,m), b2 - c2 = m, and E(S,m) 2 b2sin(S)
and F(S,m) are the incomplete elliptical integrals of the first and second kind. What did Stuart whisper to Lyra?
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HANNAH FLATO
Shells
FALL 2007 | 15
CAMBRIAN THOMAS-ADAMS
Praises Two bricks between me and God, and you could say I was alive, as the plaster rained down on my kneeling frame, facing Mecca for prayer. I could hear the mortars’ unfolding verses, and rockets, like crescendos. These, linked around each other, interspersed by my desperate huddled whispering, chanted out a voice I’d come to know. After He spoke, (for only He could hold my mind so entirely and so still) I heard the figures that lay writhing and scattered by His word, freed from their flesh, which was a prison and a hell, I know. And for this reason the smoke is a blessing, because for a clouded moment I can imagine I am with them, wisps above the minarets, before I see what I must look like in His eyes, haloed by blood and settling dust; kneeling on the shattered tiles. The city is speaking like God, so God is in the city. I raised my head up from the rubble and knew that I could hear his words
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CAMBRIAN THOMAS-ADAMS
from my mouth, shuddering in each living breath. Twelve years is not enough to restrain the bones inside my hand which picked up the brick from the doorway. I stood with this, a fragment of my fighting city, and held it heavenward for my Father’s smile. I danced out into their silent crosshairs and cast my city forth, with my lip curled back, like a cornered dog’s.
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KRISTIN SIMMONS
Casino Man
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FRANÇOISE de SAINT PHALLE
An Untitled Lyrical Ballet VEN BEFORE THE CURTAIN OPENS, I know what will happen. The velvet seat feels soft under my legs, but a moment later I still pull my tiny self onto my father’s lap, my twiggy legs eclipsing his trunk-like thighs. I manage to get comfortable just before lights dim, sending sparkles off the enormous prismed wall fixtures, and the golden drapery diagonally lifts from each side. By the middle of the Nutcracker’s second act, my father is drowsy, but I am wide awake observing each dancer as she comes down stage in a series of twirls and leaps, stopping in front of the throne that seats Marie and the Nutcracker Prince. I study each movement: every lift of a leg, each flutter of a foot. Like every four year old girl, I aspire to be a ballerina, dreaming that one day I may fill a gleaming costume. Each dancer replaces the brightly colored tutu that came before her. With each changing of the guard, I change the role I aim to become. Coffee whisks onto stage, her belly gyrating swiftly in circles. As she arabesques her way, symbols on her ankles make a sharp clang, and I can imagine myself on the sands of Arabia, perhaps even India. She leaps hugely, her pointed barefoot meeting the stage in a gentle “ting”; her legs splay outward from her body like a broken wicket. She is independently exotic; unaccompanied. I envy her pride in being different, breaking away in costume from the tutu into pants, belly-shirt, bare feet, and heavy make-up. The Marzipan shepherdesses twirl out, their pink and yellow costumes fluttering. Their energy is limitless, their spins, unending, as if they have been spoon-fed sugar. They lead the entire cast in dance, helping the Nutcracker Prince to his feet. There is no delegated leader, but, a group, a decided team working together to aid their lambs. Candy Canes flood the stage. The lead balances his striped hula hoop around his torso as he chasés. The other candy canes follow behind as if pulled in by gravitational pull, mimicking his movement. His hula
E
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FRANÇOISE de SAINT PHALLE
pulled in by gravitational pull, mimicking his movement. His hula hoop balanced in a soft orbit, he teaches and leads but the hoop never falls. He is joined by the Sugar Plum Fairy. She is poised and elongated. Each arm stretches and reaches out to each dancer and audience member, as if to include everyone. Each pose is thought out, managed. Each extension has a purpose. She handles everything with ease. I never did become a ballet dancer. The fruitless strive for perfection seemed like too much frustration for this little girl. As I grew up, we stopped going to the Nutcracker; my father preferred to nap at home, and I was able to visit in Christmas Eve dreams. I still think about which dancer to become. Whether it’s the independent, exotic Coffee, the team player Marzipan with a need to help, the teaching, balancing act Candy Cane, or the poised Sugar Plum Fairy reaching out to others. And as I sit in the audience and look up at the magnificent sweets, I want everything.
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CAITLIN ARDREY
The Path to Le Chou
FALL 2007 | 21
KAT MCGOWAN
Splatters
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KAT MCGOWAN
Soyeux
FALL 2007 | 23
JUN TAEK LIM
M&M’s
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AMANDA BENNETT
Pollution
FALL 2007 | 25
ISABEL BIRD
Turkey Skeleton
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AMANDA BENNETT
Tuning
FALL 2007 | 27
KAYLA CORCORAN
Dante: Reproduction of an Image by Etienne Delessert
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JULIA KELLER
What I Did With a Pair of Scissors I took some scissors And cut the calluses Off my feet. . . . It’s one of those things You immediately regret. Now I have these Stupid pink spots where there Used to be tough. I scowl every time I put on my socks.
FALL 2007 | 29
MYKHAYLO LEMESH
Goodbye I stand on the platform at the train station. She wears her favorite red beret but still shivers from the cold. Streams of people flow by like a mad current. An inebriated man in a dirty winter coat sits on the bench beside us, cursing at a train he has missed; a group of gypsies crowd the gates near the main entrance, begging for change; an old woman walks by carrying a big plastic platter, selling steaming homemade cookies to passengers. In the midst of many, my mother and I stand tacit and alone, neither of us sure what to say for our final good-bye. A freezing wind blows into my face as if trying to sneak a look at the whirlpool of thoughts spinning in my head. Just last night my mother and I celebrated the New Year on the train, maybe the last one we would celebrate together. I will not be able to afford to fly home during the school year. We drank champagne and ate tangerines, recording our humble fĂŞte on the cell phone I bought for my mom to call her from the States. And now, all gaiety gone, we hear the announcement that my train to Kyiv and then to the airport departs in ten minutes. Alas, only ten minutes to say what has not been said and to forgive what has not been forgiven; otherwise I must wait seven hundred thirty days or seventeen thousand five hundred twenty hours for the next opportunity. I look into the gap between the waiting train and the platform and start listing all the things packed in my suitcases, partly to make sure that nothing has been forgotten, partly to suppress the acute desire to burst into tears. Winter jacket, boots, leather gloves . . . It seems strange for my mom to wave good-bye to me at sixteen and not embrace me again until I am eighteen. I do not shave yet. Will she be surprised to discover a razor in a basket along with my toothbrush and toothpaste two years from now? Sweatshirts, blazers, dress shirts . . . I remember when I was four years old, and my mother left me asleep in our small apartment to buy some groceries
M
Y MOTHER AND
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MYKHAYLO LEMESH
at a neighboring store. When I woke up and found no one in the apartment, I started crying, not knowing the reason for my mom’s absence, not knowing what to do or where to run. Now I feel the same way but can’t simply sleep through our separation. Flip-flops, sneakers, shoes . . . I look at the ticket wrinkled in a tight grip of my hand, wondering how this tiny piece of paper can control human lives. No sentimental looks full of sadness, no emotions can change these numbers and dates. I feel a déjà vu from the day my mom brought me to kindergarten and left me with a teacher in a long white robe. Socks, shorts, pajamas . . . How will my mom look like at our next encounter? I imagine more gray hair under a faded beret and deeper wrinkles under the eyes. Will her smile be still as soft, the eyes as caring? Blankets, pillows, towels . . . I cover her cold hand with mine. We still stand silent, trying to come up with last words. If I were in the States, I would use English “I love you.” The Russian Ya tebya lublyu does not sound right—either too tragic or not appropriate enough. The conductor asks the passengers to board the train. Losing track of my list, I look into my mom’s eyes and see tears. She fires out short sentences, stuttering from the awkwardness of saying aloud the words so many times rehearsed in her head: Ya gorzhus’. Staraysya. Na odnu stupen’ku blizhe k tseli. Postroy luchshuyu zhisn. Make me proud. Study hard. One step closer to the goal. Build a better life. I will. I carry my bags over the gap between the train and the platform. A girl asks me to help carry her suitcase up the steps. I turn to look at my mom but see only her dark red beret flowing into the stream of people, slowly disappearing among other passengers, drunkards, gypsies, and old women with platters.
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JOSH KRUGMAN
Untitled normally, rivers diverge unquestioned, untaxed, as they carry their deephearted lives in their stomachs. from an altitude rivers are not rivers: they are thoughts. and as fragile as your hair— limp and taut on across the land and land.
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MARIA CANDELA
Two Spiders “You’re an expatriate. You’ve lost touch with the soil” (120). —Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
SAT ALONE ON A CLIFF in Cuzco to watch the view. The last moribund sun
I
rays were letting themselves fall gently over the grass. I could see many little white houses of mud packed together in the valley, and the tight streets made of stone connecting them. Light filtered through the clouds, and pink and orange stains smeared the sky. There was something strange about the view, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I remember thinking that only a kid could have painted the sky. The strangeness of the view reminded me of those horrible clowns that come in boxes, and love to jump in your face when you least expect them to. I heard a melody that echoed all the emptiness; it sounded like jazz but without the freedom. It reminded me of an old merry-go-round my grandmother had taken me to when I was little. I had hated it. The mirrors hanging on the walls and the colorful light bulbs were unpleasant, and I didn’t like the way those big, shiny horses glided up and down while we went in circles, and the music blasted out. The melody seemed to invade all Cuzco until there was no other sound. It crept through the streets, climbed the walls, and got all tangled up in the electricity cables, where I saw the corpse of a trapped kite. The heavy, languid notes seemed to be engendered by the core of the earth and played in past tense. They filled me with the same irrational fear children feel, and reminded me that I would soon leave Latin America. My usual list of ambitions dissolved in the music. I took my shoes and socks off and let my feet touch the soil. It was a bit wet from when it had rained, and I pushed my feet into the soil. I made sure they got dirty and my hands too. With my hands and feet in the soil, FALL 2007 | 33
MARIA CANDELA
I felt basic, pure, perfect. I wanted to dive into the entrails of the soil, smell it, eat it. I wanted to stay there forever. I remember the last days I spent with my family as if they were a dream or had happened ages ago. The long, dirty avenues of Manhattan, the people walking quickly like busy ants, the munchkin who danced at the subway station, the phantom of the opera and the falling chandelier, the fugacious lights of the cars and limousines passing by. I had joked with my father saying that all those limousines were ours, and walking through Broadway like we owned the place. I took his warm hand, and we danced in the streets with the music of the advertisements, as if those gigantic lights had been turned on just for the two of us. I fixed my eyes on him, trying to memorize every detail of his face: his round, green eyes, his chaotic eyebrows, his silver moustache, and the little blue dot on his right eyelid, which he had since he was twelve when a girl, furious with him for god knows what, had pinched him with a fountain pen. Those days were gone in an instant, and in no time fall came, and I found myself having the last meal with my family in Friendly’s. I remember the blonde waitress who smiled all the time. I thought she was very nice. She brought us gigantic ice creams. I wasn’t able to eat mine because I didn’t want to ruin its shape: it had valleys of vanilla ice cream, rivers of hot chocolate fudge, and raindrops of cherry. I decided instead, to draw with the crayons the nice lady had given me. I looked at my father working laboriously with his spoon around the mountains of chocolate ice cream, and at the blonde, smiling waitress. I felt homeless at Friendly’s. I felt as if I had woken up from a dream and didn’t remember any of it, as if something had been stolen from me. I looked at the stuffed monkey my parents had given me before saying goodbye, and remembered Bill in The Sun Also Rises when he says: “The road to hell is paved with unbought stuffed animals” (78). I felt he was right. I was grateful to have that monkey. I lingered on the sidewalk until my family disappeared in a street covered with tree shadows. I felt the same way I feel when I find myself wondering around the house and forget what
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MARIA CANDELA
it was I was supposed to be doing. Except for the fact that now, I couldn’t just go back to do my room and find something else to do. I went into the dorm, and there were two large spiders in the blatantly white wall. They stared at me. I stared them back. They didn’t move. I didn’t move. I looked outside the window. Everything looked foreign. Even the grass looked different. It was too green. I embraced the monkey.
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AMY VOLZ
Balboa Pier
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MARIA CANDELA
The Whiteness “Hay tanta soledad en ese oro. La luna de las noches no es la luna que vio el primer Adán. Los largos siglos de la vigila humana la han colmado de antiguo llanto. Mírala. Es tu espejo.” —Jorge Luis Borges, La Luna. HE STARES AT ME from the mirror, but I don’t always know her. I don’t
S
know how she will look like this time, and it frightens me. Sometimes, her weary eyes barely return my glance as she works on a broken smile, other times, her lips curl mischievously, her eyes darting forward. She always looks different. It’s true. My grandmother used to tell me it was so, it was so. She said it was because of the days, and because the light of the moon was never the same. I used to follow her when she was getting ready for a party. She contemplated her image in the wooden vanity mirror, her head slightly tilted to the right, as if trying to counter the strangeness of symmetry. Her white hair was neatly arranged in a bun, and the bones of her eyebrows protruded in her angular face. Her face looked as old as the moon. All faces look as old as the moon. She was very white. I asked her why she was so white. She said it was because as a little girl she had looked at the moon too much. I believed her. I began looking at the moon too much too. From time to time, when she was looking in the mirror, her eyes lost focus. She seemed to penetrate the darkness behind them, the scars and crevices, the abandoned house, the skeletons of her mother, the tunes of dead music, the laughs of departed children. She mumbled an old song as her eyes stood still in her reflection, not really looking. Don’t laugh in the mornings because you will cry in the afternoons . . . But her arms rested down heroically, arching slightly like a ballet dancer. Her back stood erect, shoulders back, hips parallel, legs bent a FALL 2007 | 37
MARIA CANDELA
little. What poise. Every line of her body, the semicircle of her bare feet, the line of her spine, the curve of her neck, seemed to be singing to the moon. “When I grow up, I will be beautiful like you. I want my hair shiny like yours,� I had told her. She embraced me, lighted a candle, took my hand and led me to the garden. I helped her pick twelve white roses. She removed their petals carefully, and placed them on hot water. Then, she took me to the patio where she washed her clothes. There were some bed sheets drying up in cords, rocking gently. The wind pulled my hair back from my face, and I remembered the girl in the mirror. I felt as though I were in a masquerade and nobody wanted to talk to me, because I had forgotten my costume. Light poured over my head, dripping to my shoulders like the hot water of roses my grandmother was sprinkling. I looked at the diaphanous full moon suspended in the night. The whiteness.
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JOANNE HUANG
Nude in Stamp
FALL 2007 | 39
JOANNE KIM
Essence of Deerfield
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MATT BUCKLEY
Ignis Fatuus to her own recorded voice, but it’s all wrong. It’s all broken bones and grandma’s china crunching underfoot and the old Gumby cat raising hell, getting caught in the ceiling fan. It took her a moment to realize that this belonged somewhere else, to another time—“white heat”—some formless recognition had jarred her awareness. Everything resembled, for an instant, some vaguely familiar sense-image. And she could tell then that the meaning of things had been somehow altered; the sidewalk, the traffic conductor, the florescent signs advertising “SALE,” “Dry Clean,” “Fine Italian Cuisine;” but she could not tell how. This is the uncertainty that seems to recycle itself over and over again. She rarely sounds like herself.
S
HE LISTENS
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MATT BUCKLEY
First Impressions It’s those eyes I can’t stand; Burnt black pupils and paper lids— They say: “Listen, I’m down on my luck—spare some change?” So I do. I give them sixty-eight cents and a paper clip under each lid, Money from the treasury and the shirt on my back and Now it’s me asking for change, Cadaver-eyed and gap-toothed and Brushing futilely at the flies as they gather around bleeding fingernails— You could carve a stronger backbone from bananas— So then I say to you: “why don’t you put yourself in my shoes?” So you do. And you walk a mile straight to the bank and You say “I’d like to deposit my heart.” “you can’t,” they say, but they’ll take your head. So you agree and you’re all heart but that shouldn’t matter, You’ll get a calculator to do the feeling for you— So we punch in the numbers and wait while she thinks, She spins and she sputters with binary blinks, And after a moment she speaks and we shrink, “tell me,” she says, “what you think.” So I say: “I hope I never have eyes like that.”
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BEKEY LEE
Pug
FALL 2007 | 43
CONTRIBUTORS’ NOTES Caitlin Ardrey is junior who lives in Dewey in a room labeled 210.5. She has a fondness for Gin Rummy and Norwegian sweaters, and her roommate, a day student, lives under her bed. The piece in the current issue is inspired by the works of Camille Pissarro and was done with forks, knives, and a toothbrush. She would like to give a shoutout to the girl's hockey team. Isabel Bird is a junior from Bedford, New York, and lives in Rosenwald. Amanda Bennett is short, and has short hair. Hence, I've been asked to be an elf twice this winter. There comes a time when you are standing in a bathroom that isn't yours, looking in the mirror at the garish green and red jingling elf costume staring back at you, and you wonder how you get talked into things like this. Or at least that time came to me. Matt Buckley doesn't take "no" for an answer. Maria Candela is a senior from Bogota, Colombia. Nora Caplan-Bricker is a four year-senior from Northampton, Massachusetts. She is proud to drive a car that is older than both her younger brother and her dog. As you can probably gather from her poem, she likes rainy days and mud puddles. Kayla Corcoran is a sophomore from Billerica, Massachusetts, where the newspaper once had a front-page story on a resident who spotted a ufo. She is terrified of unripe bananas, and once a bird flew into her window while she was in her room (she pronounces it like “rum”). Hannah Flato is a sophomore from San Antonio, Texas. She struggles a bit with the difference between words like “pen” and “pin” as certain people won’t let her forget, and says y’all on occasion. She’s been practicing physical therapy as a winter sport for two years now, and finds it quite
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CONTRIBUTORS’ NOTES fulfilling. In her spare time, she loves doodling or looking through a good picture book. Clare Henry is a senior who would like to be from Aberystwyth, Wales. She likes lizards and has a deep fear of squirrels. Clare prefers running to walking and is a supporter of Chelsea Football Club. Her favourite flavour of ice cream is hazelnut. Joanne Huang is a four-year senior from Korea. This nude piece was one of the assignments in Mr. D's AP class. It's done entirely in ink and a stamp that says "Good Luck." Julia Keller is a senior from Concord, MA. While working on a farm this summer in Lexington MA, she and her co-workers were advised that if they cut the calluses that had formed on their feet off, they would be more comfortable. She will never do it again. Joanne Kim is a senior who came to DA as a new junior. She enjoys designing clothing. She is absolutely in love with monkeys, Audrey Hepburn, Coco Chanel, and The Notebook. Joshua Krugman enjoys spending afternoons among hemlock trees, Dmitri Shostakovich, snow, and general cosmic disjointedness. He supports violent insurrection of any kind. Bekey Lee is a senior who lives on Poc III. She recently purchased a miniature schnauzer which turned out to be a teacup sized mixed breed. Mykhaylo Lemesh is a senior from Zaporizhzhya (pronounced like Zaporizhzhya) Ukraine. He once banged on the aluminum trashcans in front of the National Guard during the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Since then he learned of more peaceful ways of self-expression and eagerly uses the knowledge of the present to depict the experiences of the past.
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CONTRIBUTORS’ NOTES Jun Taek Lim is a junior from Seoul, Korea. This piece "pop" was inspired by Andy Warhol and Chuck Close. Katrina Magowan hails from Hillsborough in the golden state of California. She does not know what she want to do with her life, but has promised to drift the world for one year. Her piece, Soyeux, means silken in French. Françoise de Saint Phalle is a senior from New York City. Sadly, her career as a ballerina was short-lived. Catherine Schopp is from Sheffield, Massachusetts. She likes music, raspberries, and Ansel Adams photographs. Kristin Simmons lives in New York City and has been doing art since she was old enough to hold a crayon. Some of her favorite artists include Pollock, Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Monet. She is an expert mix maker and enjoys making jams for Mr. Dickinson. Cambrian Thomas-Adams is a perfervid rhetorician and a recreational lexiphanes of inestimable repute. He vehemently opines that tantamount to bookish erudition is the vivacious torrent of sensory experience that one may elicit from the world. "Do not learn to be," he would say. "Simply be. That is the path to true greatness." (In truth, he would surely pontificate in far more elaborate and contumelious tones, yet perhaps for the sake of simple profundity and coherency, a less exclusive terminology could be effectively implemented). Austin Turner is a senior from Middleburg, Virginia. He has taken art all four years at Deerfield and will continue to do so in college. Amy Volz moved to Florida and wishes everyone would stop asking if she lives in an elderly community.
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CATHERINE SCHOPP
Reading Man
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