Tower Hill School Lit Page

Table of Contents Page One.................................................................................At War by Lexi Longo Page Two...................................................Something Profound by Mr. Kirby Smith Page Three...........................................................................Daybreak by Sara Brown Page Four, Five & Six......................................Time is for Dragonflies and Angels

by Ms. Coleen hubler Page Seven....................................................Nani’s Hands by Mrs. Navanjali Kelsey Page Eight..................................When I Found a Curious Snail by Vanna Ramirez Page Nine................................................................Andy and Me by Mr. Kirby Smith Page Ten..............................................................Don’t Label Me by Anna Schwartz Page Eleven....................................................................................She , I

by Kai Page Twelve.............................................................The Last Train by Taylor Reese Page Thirteen..........................................................Curious Insight by Sara Brown Page Fourteen.................................Behold this Broken Bucket by Vanna Ramirez Page Fifteen................................................................Claustrophobia by Blair Isken Page Sixeteen........................................................................Motion by Taylor Reese Page Seventeen & Eighteen..............The Traveling Man Picture by Ellen Potter Page Nineteen...................................................................Threshold by Sara Brown Page Twenty...........................................Into Mist Forever Lost by Vanna Ramirez Page Twenty One............................................To Love Is to Let Go by Kai Inguito Page Twenty Two......................................................................Mittens by Emily Yin Page Twenty Three......................................................The Imaginer by Sara Brown Page Twenty Four...............................................Mt. Cuba by Ms. Navanjali Kelsey Page Twenty Five..............................................................Messages by Taylor Reese Page Twenty Six....................................................................Trapped by Sara Brown Page Twenty Seven....................................................Find Myself by Vanna Ramirez Cover Art by Vanna Ramirez Co-Editors: Taylor Reese & Vanna Ramirez Faculty Advisor: Coleen Hubler A note from the editors:

In this issue you will find a selection of works from the Tower Hill faculty, as well as students.

At War

by Lexi Longo Children playing in the sand, Waves beating the shore, One by one the people fade, But my mind is still at war.

The forceful wind pulls back my hair, It whispers more and more, as I wade into the icy blue, my mind is still at war The sand is rough under my feet As I walk back to the shore, Seagulls cry and fly above, My mind is still at war.

The The I try to But my

battle draws to a close, waves grow calm at last, remember what caused the fray, mind has let go of the past.

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Something Profound

by Mr. Kirby Smith

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Daybreak

by Sara Brown

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“Time is for Dragonflies and Angels”

by Ms. Coleen Hubler

A summer ago, on a day when the heat was rising in waves and the city seemed muffled in humidity, I grabbed my book-laden bag from my car and trudged through the propped open doors of the alcove of my apartment building. As I checked my mail, my ears caught a buzzing, angry but low, in the alcove and the thrumming of something hitting the glass windows. Following the sound that was surely insect in nature, I pivoted toward the left bank of panes, expecting to see a bumblebee or wasp, normal summertime visitors to the alcove, but instead, on the windowsill, repeatedly attempting escape, were two palm-sized dragonflies, one kelly-green, the other powder-blue, brilliant and beautiful, and hunters, I knew. Sleek and dangerous, with compound eyes and silvered wings that gave them a kind of dominion over the pond world, they were now helplessly beating themselves against a prison wall. I watched, old memories of insects crowding my brain and overwhelming my thoughts momentarily. Then, I saw a much younger version of myself, and I knew I would have to do something about those dragonflies.

I had, at about age seven, developed a fascination with insects, starting with butterflies and moths. My mother had bought me a butterfly net and a small guide to identify these flying creatures, and I spent my summers in a field next to our house, wandering among grasses and wild flowers high as my knees, searching for monarchs and swallowtails and the elusive mourning cloak butterfly that I occasionally spied but never caught. If I did net a butterfly, I gazed at it for a few seconds, and then, because I could never collect anything so fragile, I’d set it free and watch as it sailed away. From those safaris, I expanded my studies into all things six-legged and a few things eight-legged (I liked spiders too), and have never lost my interest in them, though I do not study them anymore. The ephemera of nature enchant me.

Still, those two dragonflies have dwelt peculiarly long afterward in my memory. Even on frosty mornings in midwinter when there is no hope of seeing one, I find myself thinking of their beauty, their fierceness, their irritated and frantic buzzing, and their insistence, that day, on beating their wings against glass when the open door was a few feet away. I’ve seen plenty of dragonflies in all shades and sizes swooping and diving in their natural habitat at my pond so, while at first it seems obvious to me why I think of them, I have lately begun to suspect that their buzzing presence in my memory may be more significant, may have deeper connections to who and what I am, and I see that I am linking memories now, like a long chain before me, and the dragonflies are latecomers to this chain, that my earlier links are not of insects or of nature, but of people, and of one person in particular. I cannot share all the memory links in this chain of mine, so I hover tentatively over and alight on a few.

I picture a girl, fifteen, with dark brown curling hair and with dark circles under her blue eyes. She is crying, and begging, “I don’t want to die!” over and over. The girl in this memory is my niece; we grew up together; she even chased butterflies with me across summer meadows. But, the pain in her legs, diagnosed for months as

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juvenile arthritis, turns out to be neuroblastoma, a cancer of the nerve cells, and she has been given three months to live. The doctors advise us to “keep her quiet.” How do you tell a fifteen-year-old that she should face mortality quietly? I blurt out irrationally, “Then don’t! Don’t die! You don’t have to, do you?” If she can just hold on tightly enough, she can stay maybe, I think. She looks at me oddly for a few seconds, with her head tilted, sobs, and then asks me to read to her. Poe, she asks for Poe. I don’t ask why. I just begin with “The Tell-Tale Heart.” I read late into the night, until she falls asleep, and the owls stop calling from tree to tree, and the book slides from my hands . . .

A year later, Lori is still with us. A children’s oncologist in San Francisco agreed to take her case, and Lori has been undergoing treatments. Her hair has fallen out, and she is always nauseated right after chemo, but when I walk into her room one day, she has donned a red stocking cap and drawn a large smiley face on the back of her head with black eyeliner. Another time, she names her IV pole, tags it, and walks down the hospital hallway introducing people to her friend. Humor has become her weapon and her defense in her battle against the disease and against people who cannot or will not understand. They are the people who tell her mother she can have another child, or my friend who assures me that cancer is not contagious, or the family friends who decide they are too busy to call for months. Those people.

When not in treatment, she enlists me to take her and her friends to eat and to the mall. After I drive around a woolly-bear caterpillar in her friend’s gravel driveway, she laughs, and pronounces me a “darned nut,” my favorite compliment of all time. Then, road trip underway, she and three other girls sing loudly and off-key as the wind whips through the car and carries their voices to the horizon. At the pizza place, she walks up to the jukebox and drops a quarter into the slot. “Happy Birthday” plays over the speaker system. I look at her quizzically and ask whose birthday I have forgotten. She replies, “It’s no one’s birthday. I’m playing it because it makes people happy.” I gaze at smiling faces around the restaurant. It’s a real un-birthday that I’m attending, thrown by a girl who understands looking-glass logic and who doesn’t care what the Red Queens of this world think.

But magic fades in and out, as insubstantial as moonlight. She undergoes surgery after surgery on her head, on her abdomen, and on her back. Sutures sometimes line her skin, a reminder of a path that she treads alone.

She doesn’t talk much about the operations; she doesn’t complain. Instead, she agrees to speak to other cancer patients in San Francisco and in Pennsylvania, especially the newly diagnosed and the very young. She tells them not to give up hope, to keep trying. I overhear her announce to a counselor, “I want to help people when I’m older. That’s the kind of job I need.” She sounds like she’d write the job description herself and answer her own ad . . .

She was on the cheerleading squad before her illness, and two years later, in a brief remission thanks to an experimental treatment she insists on trying, she cheers at games. I watch from the bleachers on an October night when the air is smoky, but moths still bob and wheel overhead, flickering in and out of stadium lights.

She is full of energy and grace, and no stranger in the crowd, if there is one at this small town football game, would ever believe she was different from the rest of her squad, dutifully urging their team on to victory. In May, she attends her prom, her date awkward in a tux and she shimmering in an evening dress as they dissolve off the porch into a spring night. She looks forward, she tells me, to receiving her diploma and starts collecting college brochures from various universities across the country with endless lists of majors. Beekeeper, lawyer, rodeo star, doctor, waitress, psychologist—she can’t choose a wrong path—she just needs the chance to follow her dream, whatever it may be. But the brochures wait in a pile on the dining room table, seeds for a future that never arrives. . .

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On a night in late January, we lose Lori, just four months short of her graduation. She slips into a coma when a blood vessel breaks. The hospital places her on life-support to give the family time. I say good-bye to her from 2000 miles away over a crackling telephone line. Then, I hang up the phone, trying not to make any noise, and stare into a pitch black, empty hallway, gathering the darkness around me and walling in my memories. I wait for one more phone call.

Today, I still visit her grave. Large maples canopy and shade the cemetery on a hill, and birds whisk about from tree to tree. I reflect on how she taught me about being brave, about fighting back, about breaking rules, and about helping people. I can still hear her laughter echo in my mind. And, I know others remember her too.

Years ago, a small stone statue of a cherub appeared; on another day a single rose bloomed against the granite; then the cherub inexplicably started sporting a friendship bracelet. Twenty-two summers after Lori’s death, this summer, in fact, I found a small note tucked under the cherub that proclaimed, “I am who I am today because of you. I miss you.” I don’t know who this faithful gift-bearer is, but we have her influence in common, and that, at least, goes on. Her doctor, still an oncologist though he is in eighties now, tells my sister this year that over two hundred people are in this world because Lori agreed to the experimental treatment. Lori’s life has created ripples that go beyond my family’s line of sight, endlessly outward.

But, what have my thoughts of Lori to do with dragonflies? A simple and perhaps obvious answer would be that humans, too, are the ephemera of nature, that each soul flashes briefly into being and flickers out just as quickly, but I could read Ecclesiastes and arrive at the same knowledge, without the pain of remembering. So, I do not think that is why my memories of a girl and that summer day are inextricably bound. It has more to do with the dragonflies’ escape. I coaxed each dragonfly separately onto a card, walked to the door, and watched as the dragonfly perched, and flexed its wings, and then launched itself, glimmering into the air. As each flew away, I thought of Emily Dickinson and her exquisite line, “Butterflies leap plashless off banks of noon,” in which she succinctly encapsulates the mystery of nature and the transience of the butterflies. I saw all that in my dragonflies too, but what I also saw and knew in that moment was that they were free. It had taken some guidance to get them there, some urging and coaxing (time is of the essence with all ephemera), but then they found the way and the world was theirs once again.

Like those dragonflies, people catch themselves up against windows all the time thinking they know the way ahead. Others tell them they are facing the sun, the open air, the right direction. They need only to keep on keeping on. In the glare of the sunlight and the buzz of the words, they miss their launching points and wait endlessly in front of panes of glass for opportunities that never come. In that way, I am not so very different.

I sometimes look past my reflection too, the tell-tale sign that it is all illusion in front of me. In actuality, the breeze is coming from the right or left. The dragonflies remind me to think, to consider, to see. And, Lori gives me the strength to redirect, the courage to turn, and the ability to move away. If I choose, I am free.

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Nani’s Hands

by Mrs. Navanjali Kelsey

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When I Found a Curious Snail

by Vanna Ramirez

Poem written in imitation of Walt Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learned Astronomer”

When I found a curious snail, when the teachers, the scientists, were crowding in a dome above me, when I was told to step aside, when I waiting, heard them debate whether it was breakthrough in evolution or science, how soon dejectedly I became weary, till stooping and falling in a slump, I sat, in melancholy reflections, remembered in perfect sincerity my peculiar friend.

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Andy and Me

by Mr. Kirby Smith

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Don’t Label Me

by Anna Schwartz

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She

, I

by Kai

She cries, I stare She complains, I don’t care She sits, I stand She swims, I’m on land She believes, I inspire She wants, I perspire She smiles, I laugh She sleeps, I’m her security staff

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The Last Train

by Taylor Reese

Inside the train station, people hurried around him like they were in a time lapse video. It was growing darker as a storm rolled in off the ocean, so people rushed onto their respective trains. By the time the sky opened up, the bustle of people had slowed, and soon the rain had begun to leak through the overhang. The floor was speckled with puddles. He sat on a bench, wearing a long coat that barely protected him from the chilling rain and frozen metal on which he was sitting. Beside him, on his left, lay a single rose, and on his right, an accordion briefcase.

Train after train rushed by, slowing down momentarily to push people off and pull people in, speeding away around the bend, toward the storm. It was overhead, and far away. It was everywhere. The floor was slick with water, every inch of it covered. The hem of his coat was soaking in a puddle.

The rose sat, drooping over the edge of the metal. It was not wrapped in cellophane, nor was it decorated with tiny white flowers. It was simple; just a rose.

The train’s horn blared, signaling its arrival, and he stood. He put the briefcase’s strap across his body so that the briefcase rested on his hip, and he placed his hand on the flap. With the other hand, he reached for the rose. He stood, stoic, waiting.

She saw him as the train approached. She was sitting by herself in one of the train’s compartments, legs crossed, impeccable posture, anxiously waiting. As much as she willed the train to break down, to not make it to the station, she knew she would have to see him.

As the train rolled into the station, the conductor came and rapped his fist against the door.

“This is the last stop, ma’am.”

“Thank you, sir,” she replied.

Still, she hesitated. Maybe she could stay on the train, undetected. She could go far away from here, to wherever the train was kept, to be taken somewhere new the next day. Where no one knew her name, her past, or her future. She could escape and start anew.

She stood, brushed the wrinkles out of her skirt, and walked calmly off the train, along with everyone else.

His cool eyes met hers once she stepped out of the crowd. She was not used to this look in his eyes. She was unsettled.

When she was just a few feet away, he finally spoke.

“You can only have one.”

“One what?”

“One or the other.” He held up the rose, then the briefcase, respectively, “You have to pick one.”

Her eyes flashed to the rose, then the accordion briefcase. She knew which one she wanted. She was desperate.

The choice wasn’t hard.

The train station was deserted. The people had all rushed to get out of the rain, swarming under the overhang, hailing cabs and running for their cars. It was a mad dash, but now there was no one. No one but the two.

“I want the briefcase.”

He looked at her, his gaze never faltering. Questioning her.

She said it again.

“I want the briefcase.”

He was a bit broken hearted. He wished she would pick the rose, but the choice was not his to make. He reached inside the briefcase, and pulled out a pistol. He shot her before she could understand what was happening.

Her blood mixed with the puddles of rain water, creating swirls of red in the transparent liquid. Laying, dying, her eyes searched for his face.

He leaned over her, laid the rose on her chest, then walked away.

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Curious Insight

by Sara Brown

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Behold this Broken Bucket

by Vanna Ramirez

Poem written in imitation of Walt Whitman’s “Behold This Swarthy Face”

Behold this broken bucket— these scratched sides, this handle— out of shape plastic, bent from overuse, faded color, cracked wall, without repair; yet comes one, a child, and wanting play, picks it up with his small hand in simple earnestness, and the bucket, in the sandbox eating granules, or by the river quenching its parched well, gives a content satisfaction in return; they ignore the screaming children in play, field and playground, those two lonely and forgotten ones.

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Claustrophobia

by Blair Isken

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Motion

by Taylor Reese

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The Traveling Picture Man

by Mrs. Ellen J. Potter (Story on next page)

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Frances and Agnes had their picture taken with me. It was to be the last time that we three sisters would have our picture taken by Mr. Clayton, the traveling picture man, before I got married. Frannie and Aggie didn’t know that at the time.

But I did.

When Mama and Pa see that tintype, I hope they see the quiet look of determination on my face. Pa probably will call it a smirk. They’ll see my hand resting over my belly. Not like I am hiding something, but more like I am feeling something. Something that is so tiny that nobody knows about it but me and thank the Lord I will be away and married long before it gets any bigger. I expect word from my Benson any day, sending for me to join him up in the city. I do not want any rumors and gossip spread on my account.

Old Widow Blaylock will spread rumors and gossip anyway. She likes nothing better than to tell everybody’s comings and goings. So when I leave, I can only hope that her tales don’t make Mama and Pa any madder than they’ll already be. But I feel that when I say ‘no,’ they should listen to me. All my life people have been saying, “Once Zipporah gets a notion in her head, nobody can change her mind.”

Last winter, just before my sixteenth birthday, Pa got all worked up about the idea that I should be getting wed. With my two sisters coming of age right behind me, Pa must think there is no time to waste.

Now, my Pa is a God fearing man. Five times a week he bundles us all up in the wagon and we traipse on over to Pastor Thomas T. Brown’s Methodist Meeting House. I swear that’s where Pa got the notion in his head that I should marry the good Pastor’s son, Wesley. Doesn’t matter to Pa that Wesley Brown is an old man of almost 35, dour and dry, spouting sermons full of fire and brimstone.

I said ‘no’ to marrying Wesley Brown.

Mama and Pa didn’t listen.

Zipporah Jones Piney Hollow Farm 15 August 1870

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Threshold

by Sara Brown

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Into Mist Forever Lost

by Vanna Ramirez Into mist forever lost, Into gray sky, gray sea, Into the liminal void, Past thin lining, holding fine silk threads,— where you venture just past your stitch, curious, daring, out from your still body, past brittle dreamscapes taunting and tempting out from the tangible, butterfly that followed you, wistful noons, distant cries, laughters heard, from under black sea scintillated and glowing, suspending a silver crescent on the side, from the play of falling amber leaves, and the warmth of someone near, love of being loved, love of loving,— you jump forth then beyond, sucked away by a vacuum unknown heart in throat, everything in echoes.

A distant song slips from your grasp.

You knew what it was, but could not say what it was, everything lost but glints of silver strands.

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To Love Is to Let Go

by K. Inguito

I woke up to some loud noise ringing throughout the city, probably gun shots. It was sometime around one o’clock in the morning. I had a foul, sour taste in my mouth, so I decided to go to the kitchen to get a drink of water. I walked downstairs only to see my father drinking a beer and watching television. He looked up and squinted at me with disgust.

“Come here,” said my drunken father.

Wondering what he was going to do, I walked over toward him hesitantly. My father suddenly swung his arm around and hit me while telling me to go back to my room. I was filled with so much rage, I decided to run away. Instead of going back to my room, I ran out the door in such a hurry I couldn’t hear what my father was yelling. As I came to a walk after running a few blocks, a vivid memory came to me. It was the night of the car crash two years ago. My dad was driving late at night when suddenly a drunken truck driver smashed into our car at an intersection. This accident killed my younger brother, Nick, and my mother. After this fatal car crash, my father had changed emotionally and physically for the worse. My father was not always an uncaring and cruel person. He was the type of father that would tell jokes and always have a smile on his face. After I snapped out of my memory of the past, I looked around and found myself in a dark, strange forest. I started to panic, not knowing where I was. All of a sudden, a blue light appeared in the distance. For some strange reason the presence of the light made me want to follow it. I just couldn’t resist the feeling. It felt as if a rope were pulling me towards it. When I finally reached the light, I saw the strangest thing; it was Nick, my brother. He looked pale and almost faded looking.

“Hello, Matthew, I haven’t seen you in a long time,” said my brother. “I came here to tell you to move on.

Have you heard the saying, ‘If you love something, let it go’?”

“I don’t understand, and I don’t want to forget about you,” I said. “Will I ever see you again or is this the last time?”

“I don’t have much time; I must send you out of these woods and somewhere safe,” said Nick. “I want you to follow this light. It will light a path for you to find yourself out of these woods.”

I followed the blue ball of glowing light for a long time but managed to find myself out of the woods. Yet, the blue light led me to Roselawn Cemetery, the cemetery where my mother was buried. I came to a stop at a tiny gravestone which said, “In loving memory of Jane Peterson.” I heard a ringing sound, and it kept getting louder every second. Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! I closed my eyes, for I thought my ears would explode. Suddenly, the ringing stopped and I opened my eyes. It was my mother! I thought I was dreaming, so I tried to pinch myself to wake up.

“You aren’t dreaming, Matthew. I came here to see you,” said my mother. “I want you to tell your father to snap out of it and get a job. I also want your father to stop drinking and feeling so guilty and depressed. He should not become the kind of person that killed us. Drinking is definitely not the answer to any problems. I want you both to be happy that you’re still alive and that you should make the most of it. Can you promise me that?”

“I will, mother, thank you for coming back. I will miss you,” I said.

“Oh, before I leave, I want you to know that you will always have me in your heart no matter where you are,” said my mother.

“Thank you,” I said as I waved to her. Surprisingly, I made my way back to my small, broken-down home.

As I opened my door, I was astounded to see my father on the floor crying in tears and prattling to himself.

“What have I done!” exclaimed my father.

I could tell he was heartbroken, so I ran up to him and hugged him as I would hug my soft teddy bear.

Once I started softening my squeeze, I looked up into my father’s eyes, and for once, it looked like he was happy again. When we hugged it seemed as if I had passed on some of the happiness within me into my father’s heart.

At this moment I learned what it felt to truly love something and let it go.

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Mittens

by Emily Yin

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The Imaginer

by Sara Brown

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Mt. Cuba

by Navanjali Kelsey

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Messages

by Taylor Reese

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Trapped

by Sara Brown

The girl stares blindly, held prisoner behind blackened bars.

Wasted hours resting in the room, Torn and balled up in the corner like dead, angry fists.

Dreams lay out on the floor waiting to be activated Or destroyed in the grand awakening.

She fantasizes about peace in solitude And comfort in company.

Endlessly unable to relinquish her imaginings to reality, She remains trapped, Navigating her thoughts locked within the chambers of her mind.

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Find Myself

by Vanna Ramirez Find myself a corner to cry keep myself small hidden back turned against a world unkind whisper myself a lullaby and fall into a coaxing dream to wake up realize I was home all along—

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