Haikus by Daiyao Zhang

Bare

The trunks of oak trees

Recede into small branches

Reaching for the day

Deer in the Day

Traveling in herds

They race to the forest heart

Small ones far behind

 

At Night

Day gives into night

And shadows are uncovered

This is where they live

 

Craters

Brown splattered on white

The snow banks melting in March

Ground covered in slop

 

Cat

The cat flicks its ears

Frolicks on the white snow banks

Nothing stops the joy

Short Story by Solyana & Erin

It was a rock with a keyhole. The rock was shining in the sunlight, and Claire instinctively reached to her necklace. The silver key fit into the rock’s keyhole and the rock moved to the side! Claire and Erin gasped and looked at each other. It was a hole, a pitch black hole. Cautiously they climbed into the hole that lead to a tomb full of amazing and historical treasures of a pirate. They tried to dig around it but whenever they did an odd sound of shifting tiles sounded. Then something started to slowly rise out of the sand covered in rust and seaweed. It was a golden tablet. The tablet had strange writing on it, and a small door was on the side. When Claire opened the door, a shining light burst out and the girls were sucked inside.

A Short Story by Claire Turnbull & Mica Wishengrad

…CLUNK!  A wooden treasure chest with gold coins spilling out was revealed. Pandi the panda pulled it out of the sand and put it on her beach chair. The beach goers to her left had their mouths open in awe. Pandi the panda carefully opened it up. Then she screamed. She saw a warm, golden light wrapping around her like a blanket. It encased her and she faded. The light disappeared, yet it was bright and warm. Her eyes were closed and she was swimming far, far away from her beach, from everything she knew and loved. Far, far away. Finally she landed and felt hard metal… coins below her feet. She was in the treasure chest.

A short story by Kaylie Montgomery

 “Catch!”

    “I’m not ready!

    The calls could be heard all the way across the lawn.

The children, the kind, good children, played in the meadow with their father. The weeds soaked up the moisture from the gardens, leaving the grass as dry and as copper as a penny. Their mother sat on the rocking chair, watching them from the front porch.

    Inside, she could be happy, outside, maybe despaired.

    She was hard to predict, shuffling between one emotion and the next, never able to decide or pinpoint how she felt, no matter what the circumstance, no matter the time of day, no matter the setting of the sun, or the passing of the moon or the coming of dawn, or the windows being pelted with rain and her miserable children sulking inside by the fireplace, trying to keep warm. 

    She was never, ever clear. 

    But her children, her golden children, like gifts from God shining so brightly from the heavens, pouring their light into the unheavenly bliss that was her world, her sad world, the world that was only gay and joyful from them. Her family. 

    Although she was getting old, she was getting weak, she had them. Her husband, her children, her mother and father. They kept her rooted to the earth where she was, where she stayed. She tried, tried, not to bring up the topic of death around them. 

    If only death were easy.

    She had known, all along. She had known ever since that one December morning, when the doctor pulled her in, into a private room, where there was no time to be happy. No time to feel blessed, no time, no time. 

    The doctor, he’d been handsom. He’d had short raven-black hair with a stout beard and a sharp nose, and eyes as green as emeralds. He had spoken the words, softly, sharply, so only she could hear, although the room was quiet, empty. Her children and husband, they were in the waiting room, when the doctor had spoken:

    “You are going to die.” 

    She’d been upset, and all the tears of countless nights and days, all bubbled up into one, like a bucket almost overflowed, like a stream, clogging and pooling, like a gutter, filled up with leaves and mud and rainwater. She was like a sponge, soaking it all up, and then letting it loose. 

    Once, she’d almost come close to telling them, that night in the kitchen. That one night, when her husband was gone. When he wasn’t there, wasn’t there to tell her not to do it. Not to tell them. Not to give in. 

    She’d gathered them around the table, all in their bedclothes, with mugs of hot cocoa, steaming, and an old book of stories from Grandma. She’d rescued it from the attic, and decided that now, with a story before bed, would be the way. 

    But she had held back. 

    All the effort, it had made her cry, all her tears spilling over the kitchen, her children, those lovely little blessings, cleaning up her spill. They had rushed to her aid, sat by her side. She’d fallen, fallen, fallen…

    “Ready to go inside?” Angela’s call startled her. She jumped out of her memories, from her drifting pool of a life. She almost fell off the chair, but her oldest child, her daughter, Angela, was there, helping her. 

    “That was a good game of catch,” said her husband, and her children gripped her in a tight embrace. She felt it. It was time. 

    All the countless seasons of holding it in, the secret, transparent, just behind reality, finally, she could grasp it. It was one thin strand, the strand that contained death, her death. 

    She wondered how her children would take it.

    She stood up and followed them inside. 

Worn by Daiyao Zhang

Worn

Stop on Main Street and look up at the sign that tells you where you are even though you insist you already know.

Do you see how the sign reaches towards you as if

you have a secret to tell?

Do you see where the rebels tried to tear it down, where the snow melted and fell,

where the baseball finally dented the corners after hours of target practice?

Now look at the cracked pavement, note the maniacal grin that meets your eyes, the

pothole mouth that will never close

Do you see the balled up Wall Street Journal on the ground? Do you see the

worn words of tired ghosts, stolen children, kidnapped homes?

Can you feel the relaxed page of comics sweeping over you like your mother’s palm,

can you see the wrinkles in the op-ed page, waiting for you to smooth it out?

Can you see the same wrinkles in the mother who swept her palm over you? The

way she smoothed out the collar of your shirt with the same hands.  

Can you see the way she silently stirred the pot with your favorite soup, and spoke about her days of blissful childhood?

Do you remember the way your sister leapt into the days and swam into the nights

and stared at the moon like a newborn wolf?

Do you see the town you passed on the way to piano class, the one with houses that

had chipped paint and drooping Christmas wreaths?

And finally, look at your hands.  Do you

see the creases in your fingers, the lines on your palms?

how many years

have you worn?

“Love Makes the World Go ‘Round” by Kaylie Montgomery

Whispers.

Cool, calm

They are the only peace in this world.

From the load bickering of the spokespeople

to those in quiet shops or apartments

to the faces of your loved ones

To the animals in the park,

They all love each other

And that’s what matters

If we all stopped and argued,

All through the day,

Life would not move forward.

Love would be the only way.

“Henry Had a Secret” by Madeleine Triff

Henry had a secret,

A big one full of fun

Henry had a secret,

His mom hadn’t won

Henry had a secret,

His mom hadn’t won

Henry had a secret,

And finally spilled the beans

Henry had a secret,

And saw his brother gape

Henry had a secret,

He owned a great big ape.

“Cool as a Cucumber” by Madeleine Triff

She was cool as a cucumber

A ripe big one too,

She was cool as a cucumber

Crisp and full of crunch,

She was cool as a cucumber

On a hot sunny afternoon,

She was cool as a cucumber

even on a rainy day.

“Spill the Beans” by Kaylee Montgomery

Beans, rolling down a hill

tumbling.

A long-lost secret.

A forgotten code.

That’s what they where;

Four lonely secrets

As brown and tumbly as beans

Brown

Like the dirt we sit on.

“Cool” by Kayle Montgomery

Cool as a cucumber.

Her arms spread wide.

Eyes, blue, confident

as the sky.

Hair black as midnight.

Dress white as snow.

Her eyes, a pressing blade

as they look me over.

That is all

I can think of

to describe her:

Cool as a cucumber.

Cooler than the sun.

Shining on her face,

as she loos at me

Her eyes a single stone

In a deep blue lagoon.

I knew she would laugh at me

If she knew what i was thinking

Cool as a cucumber

Cool as a cucumber