Woodhull Preparatory School - Crest Yearbook (Jamaica, NY)

Page 93 text:

DARK RENDEZVOUS Whirling, spinning, dizzy dream. Dream? . . . perhaps reality. . . Forms and figures, screaming voices Blur before me. Dulled thought, Bitter tears of hatred Sting my face . Words echo . . A blow falls . . . blackness. Cool breezes about me mingle with the murky dark A sense of being, an awareness of life Fills my spirit. I hear the flutter Of wings, and I know. I look into the fiery eyes Of Death - misty caves that Stretch to Eternity are revealed To me. l feel the black wings of Death Flutter about my head. I greet Death with joy, an open hand . . . Reaching . . . Death does not enfold Me in his arms, he merely laughs, A teasing glow in his eyes. Suddenly there is the light of Life. Oh Death, why taunt me so? I cry out, aware of harsh reality. Death answers, fading, No peace for thee. His leering face disappears And leaves my presence, unfulfilled. I face the light, the forms, the voices. I weep, as Life takes me by the hand. Jacqueline Wong if

Page 92 text:

DEATH To every man Must come, - Austere darkness. A It cannot be changed, It cannot be avoided., But in an instant This darkness Turns to radiant sunlight, Eternal Happiness. This Happiness - Heaven The Meaning - Death. The Miracle - God. - Brenda Hahn PROTEST You're outdated! Flowered sentiment Rules your life with purest precedent. I do not believe that what it implies Is trueg and if it weren't for your eyes, I'd call it all lies. I challenge your years of experience and sincerity And the degree of your scholarly verity. I question the value of your words - only air - Rarely remembered, unheeded, unfair! No sense, no sense at all from my viewpoint - lllogical, incongruous, like an arm with no joint. Give in, why don't you? I know better! I'm youn The beads of your person are too tightly strung With no room to move. I'm recklessly free. Leave your bequest of learning to me. Forget martyrdom, you senile old fool. You'l1 go out with the custom and rule That bound your generation. I say With conviction that there's a new way. Your words don't touch me, but I wonder When our accord was torn asunder? Words are only air, but air becomes breeze And tickles the buds of the highest treesg And when whipped to the wildest gale, It breaks rough rocks and makes ships sail In its own path. But I am strong. I know with assurance that I'm not wrong. - Brenda Hahn

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A UTO REQUI E M Perhaps my smile is duller now, And songs I sing don't mean as much As they might have meant just yesterday. I know, for sure, old wounds I bear from Careless words and thoughtless Have ceased to throb with pain that's real. I know I'm left with nothing, But - In nothingness there is repose, And also calm that spreads a veil Of blankness over all that's wrong. t And, God, I know there's much that's wrong, But I don't care, or think, for that, On things that caused me grief before - They threw me, heartless, into seas of Haunted melancholyg but now, l've ended an endless drowning. Plodding along, I stand content to be An empty vessel 'midst A churning chaos. Run your heated Races and pray your fervent prayers - Both, for you, are dead and cold as splinters From a broken crystal bowl That once you filled with blood-red wine And drunk from, freely as the sunlight. My friends, my' friends, gay pipers and players, Dancing as dust in the whirl of 1ife's winds, I will not speak to you of my soundless morning I will not explain the wall that surrounds me - You, too, live in the world I have fled from, And were your eyes but opened once Perhaps your life would change As mine has changed. But I will not bethe grim herald of awakening, Nor would I be a builder of walls. My bowl, cracked deep and crushed, as yours, l've long since fltmg beside the roadg - No chains to bear, no cause for tears, No love, or hate, or pity - A joyless life, I know it seems, but yet, The door from which joy fled Saw also leaving all my grief - All that rests behind is nought, But still, it rests unwounded. Life may ache, But nought Is nought. Laurence Tucci