Where I’m From

by Megan B., 8th Grade, inspired by George Ella Lyon’s Poem

 

I am from spatulas,

from cooking and blue-fish.

I am from clothes hidden under my bed.

I am from the rose bush

the pink, red, and white ones

whose thorns I will never forget

as they stab me while walking by.

 

I’m from ice cream on a hot day and mini golfing

I’m from Nana and Ginga

I’m from brains of the family

and the loud ones,

from ‘You’re late!’ and ‘We’re not going to make it on time!’

I’m from CCD

with big green books

and chapters between chapters.

 

I’m from Mary Lu and Frances,

Singing and swimming.

From the heart my grandfather lost

To the tooth that fell out.

 

Under the cabinet was a flowered box

spilling out baby pictures,

unknown faces

that I think about in spare time.

I am from those pictures–

Older than I can remember —

All grown up.

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Legacy: The Dreams within Us

by Talia M., 7th Grade

Identity is the mask we plaster on our faces, the words we speak, the clothing we wear. It is what we bind to ourselves, to other people’s memories. What we are remembered by, the things small or big that define us.

Eventually those things will fade away, as do our identity, our legacies. New people and new ideas will come along, and then all of our marks will blend and smudge together. These blending, smudges, the markings, will all become a massive tapestry of history. This tapestry will rub away until it is beaten and weathered to dust, the many stories to great a weight, causing a collapse.

Although soon the tapestry will rise again, born again with new things to tell. And every little mark on that tapestry will be so small and seemly insignificant that you might not even notice it. But within that tiny, tiny little space is generations of families, friends, of life. People that have lived, dreamed, died. That long for their story to transcend time.

And it does, because the tapestry would not be as large and colorful for not the thousands of markings.  Some of these may shine brighter than most when they became somebody. A president, author, poet, dancer, actor, actress. Maybe yours will shine like that, or it will be so inexplicitly normal that it would seem to never exist. But every little part is important, because although the world may not see you, friends, parents, mentors will. Your legacy will live on through that.

It might seem impossible, that out of so many people you are important. But you have to dream so big it seems impossible, and then go do it. You have to push yourself to the brink of your darkest moments. You have to make your life count, because you only get one chance to live. Make yourself shine so bright that the whole world cannot ignore you. And with time, we all will become something magnificent. A tapestry so rich, vibrant and beautiful.

We will be remembered.

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The Lady

by Olivia, 7th Grade – An excerpt from her short story.

They say that the old woman who told me this was an eccentric.  I am not so certain, for I, and I alone, saw a stranger go into the woods outside our village in the autumn of my eighth year, and not come out.  I know this because I waited for him for hours.   (Strangers are a rarity in our village, and I wanted the privilege of being the first to greet our guest).  I did not go into the forest after him, because, even if no one else believed the old woman’s story, (Hag, they call her), we have been taught to dread the creatures that make their home in the woods.  Wolves the size of men.  Bears the size of small cottages.  We call these things Killers.

I told my account of the stranger to my mum, and she told me that “one of them Killers must’ve gotten him, poor feller,” but the Killers attack the feeble-minded who decide to venture into the fringes of the forest, and I heard no screams.  The man must have been farther in.

The Hag is the closest thing that I have to a friend.  I protect her from what the Vagrants would do to her and her home, and, in return, she tells me legends forgotten by everyone but her.  The half-magic people that make their homes in the moors to the west, who live in the shape of Men, and the corpses that rise from the unmarked graves once every hundred years, and the fiery bird that, it is said, will ride in with the end of time, setting the sky to fire.

I listen to her in awe, shivers running up and down my spine.  I had heard my parents discussing me, how it was not natural for me not to be playing with other boys my age, and instead listening to an old, half-insane woman tell ‘dark magyk stories’.  They think that it is because of her that I am “turning out strange.”

I do not know the Hag’s name, and have never asked it, and never will.  She is Hag.  No name would suit her better.

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Snow Magic

by Regan L., 8th Grade

 

Gray blankets envelop the sleepy town,

Trapping it in dull, hopeless, infinite winter

Lights shine through the darkness of dawn,

Toddlers awaken and cry, mothers coddle,

 

School children arise, dragging themselves

Out of hazy, all-encompassing sleep

But, fingers of warm, butter-light shine through,

Penetrating the thick, cloudy skies

 

The squirrel shivers and shakes off

Its head a pure, lacy snowdrop,

And settled, again, inside of its tree,

It nods back off into the tender soul, the oak’s soft core

 

Branches sway like ballerinas, winter-pixies;

The bubbling creek is encased in ice,

The slick, glittering surface hiding secrets, now dormant,

Shielding them for just a few more months

 

The white layer brings life to inactive winter

Providing hope, invigorating its inhabitants.

A kindergartener’s rosy red cheeks, woolen mittens

Filled with holes, skates worn with love and ice-rimmed scratches

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