Yeshiva University High School For Girls - Elchanet Yearbook (New York, NY)

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Just One The quality of a unit is the quality of the whole, for the whole is made of the units. ' ' , , How can a garden be more beautiful than a single llower, for its beauty is nothing Q 7 more than the collective beauty of the single flowers? I 3 .. I Can an ocean be more clear and sparkling than a single drop of its water? As pre- I ' cious as the whole sky is the smear of blue that comes through the trees. Gne tree can f ' ' 2 - , be a forest ifyou multiply it in your mind. V' Happiness is many smiles, many moments of joy. But one smile, one moment of . ecstasy contains in it the happiness of a lifetime. For in that one moment you have 1 everything you desire. If you can hold on to that one perfect instant of happiness, and t V LW remember it always, then you will realize that one note is a song, one word a poem, one love all Love. X A Life is a chorus of heartbeats, of occurrences, of isolated patches of beauty and of . moments. Live each one completely, take out of each all you can, and your single life will be all Life. - Sandra Rapps U n zz tl ea' t a y 6 fbecause titles are a dragj 7 And nothing matters, I mean, just nothing at all. , 1 f My eyes have been smeared with watered-down grey paint, my ears stuffed with heavy cotton, and my 4 brain shot through the haze, I kinda wonder what it'd be like to feel again. But, then, it's hard to keep on at one thought that way-I get so fagged out. Oh sure, I'm with it Cthoughj. I know all the right at words, and who to say 'em to, and I play my guitar N just bad enough, and sing songs with just the right A . air and live in the right cage-oh yeah-and I wear f ' just the right fog on my head. , But-three days ago someone smiled at me. Some- - j g one I've known for a long time but never really . V V noticed. You know the kind of thing I'm talking 2. about. , i Anyway, I was just sittin' around feeling bugged . t I j . -just sorta sniffin' last week's cold and lookin' for I -. split ends and stuff-and I look up-and there's this face-with a smile that turned eyes to blasting neon-And man, like I went up so high . . . like a regular kite-and my guts were just tinglin' like a bunch of electrihed wires. And the craziest thing- ' ' I like, that haze I was talking about-the one on my brain-like man-it lifted-and I could REALLY see . . . it was like all of heaven exploding around me I -and all the time my eyes were riveted to the face- -' i I -- fi ' ' and I felt myself smiling back. And I saw my reflec- ' .1 ' ' 'f' A fl tion in the eyes-and it was beautiful. -V -' H 1 f - Toby Gutwill ' ' jg 25

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View in-Two Every evening for the past thirty years, on my way Just the other afternoon, as Iglanced out my window, home from work, I've passed the same blasted tree the ancient tree standing before my house caught my that stands in front of the house next to mine. And lately, I see the kid next door templating it, and he looks he's thinking. Well, I've and I haven't found things thing, the darned thing advances. Year in and blossoming, feigning lasts only a short while. and dried by its dying, drying, hardening, Look at its roots They are like bi everyone else's life moisture, like a like one man draining tions, and even of life satiation at someone self and leaving nothing. Now just glance . . . snarled, twisted, are the minds of conniving, warped. The branches one trying to out-do his neighbor, compatriots of the human race. be one step ahead of the 'nextg destroy a competitorg each of himself, trying to find the easiest gardless of the others. And, of course, there's the and straight, huh? Don't be facade. It's really hard, the so-called leaders among better word. They are hard They indoctrinate us in the branches, snarled and the leaders are warped, thing is rotten, not even about. So what the hell . . . 24 an withered deadened. things. soil of all 1ife's blood, loves, aspira- all for . him- A' See them mean, bent, . . .each of my only of ountime thinking invading I toiia point of ,Surely these , Every- . I I thought about the tree for a while and well, it on a new importance. I thought that it ' 'ature model of humanity's history. g sa rt begins life young and fresh, fertile and crisp, eager to meet the world and the sunshine. Then, for a while, it seems to lapse into something short of death, in actuality, only waiting, working, toward next year's fresh start, anticipating anxiously it's re- birth and renaissance. Each year it seems to look newer, somewhat greener, and better able to meet the world than the previous year. Man, is constantly being greater truths. He at times, but he's that will come in this world- must direct his reborn through the often' seems to stand still, even just preparing-for the great with the realization of what why he exists, and toward efforts and energies. Iithoiight about the moist clods of earthgf-strivingtto a man's mind, groping among-the and wis- dom, trying toretain even a wonders. I couldisee the branches the other, all stretching upward, reaching They are like man, always yearning to achieve greater heights, attempting he can grasp. And all of this upward heave. We man. Our hands are to accomplish the mains the serene, like They higher than up together in one race, one as they strain up The trunk of the tree re- straight, upright, solid, are the leaders among men. the trunk guides the branches, to channel our energies. But do not limit us, they do not control branch out, expand, grow, and bend the branches, we have infinity as our only Barbara Newton

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SANDS It was a gray day. The morning dew still hung in the air. The waves pounded mercilessly on the beach. The girl walked alone. The ocean spray covered her face and her stringy hair clung to her back. She stuck her toe into the moist sand. Though the beach was devoid of all life. she could picture endless fields of grain, waving with the wind. She walked on. A glit- tering shell seemed to beckon her. As she bent to pick it up, she imagined the shell whispering to her the secrets of the lost and forgotten. Fossils hidden amidst the sands begged to reveal the world's tale. The sand hid mistakes and fortunes. It covered the bloodshed and the atrocities, as well as the accom- plishments and the glories. She furrowed her brow and abruptly dropped the shell. As she wandered on, her teacher's words came to 'S rx-X 3 'i 1 26 her. Sand, by a unique chemical process, could form glass, glass through which a father views his infant son. Glasses which give new hope to the aging eyes of an elderly woman. Pensively, she let it sift through her slender fingers. G-d promised Abraham that his offspring would number as the sands by the sea. As she wiped her hands on her faded jeans, she looked to the murky horizon. Beyond it lay the promised land. How simple it seemed for one to swim across. But, she knew that the fierce waves would not let her pass even the jetty. On a starry night, the light of the pale moon formed a magical pathway across the sea. She often imagined herself crossing the golden bridge and kissing the distant shores. Sand. It embodies the world. Anna Zlolnick Castle A rchitecture A child on the beach, chubby hands molding clumps ofwet sand, into castles and towers, reached for dry sand, held it, but it slipped sifting onto the sand. Water swept forward to greet him. He stretched out his hand And grabbed the water, unclenched his fist, found it empty, and sat staring at a damp palm. Furrowed brows, He tried again, but the elements flowed back to their origin. He threw back his head and laughed Began once more, pursuit of castle architecture. He picked up sand, and the particles clung to his sweaty hand. He sat, staring at the sea, rose, and began to walk along the waterline. Tides filled recesses molded in the mud by his steps, and he disappeared, leaving imprints in the sand and a kingdom on the sea. Miriam Weinfeld les!