Page 69 - Scrimshaw1976-77

Scrimshaw Paqe 5 say everything can be replaced ... Then winter came, and the bare branches reached starkfv lor the ~ i remember my first glimpse 01 sky. only a few fragments-of hrown the trees. The leaves were a vivic leaves clinging to them. Ihad been green, framed against the white new.r-a freshman. when those panes of the windows. The leaves leaves were green. By the time were the product or.summer in they were gone J had settled in, no , their prime, bursting with life. I longer a new element in a new felt likes those leaves; the same world. I han already carved and life forces were charging me. I'd found my niche never been in a school before where I could look out a window and see s tree, right there. so close But I was comforted by the fact I could study the leaves as I sat in that the trees were there. and that r. class too could change and grow. like the leaves. like the trees. Remem- bering the trees in their various stages ll.oced forward to' seeing them again; comparing my rate of Then fall came. The leaves growth and change with the trees. turned vivid yellows and oranges But soon the possibility to do this They fell, drifting down in such will vanish, No longer will the -graceful, aerobatic maneuver, to existence of the leaves brighten my land in rustling piles. I used to morning or inspire my thoughts. watch them fall, admiring their Though Icannot see it, through the golden tones against the blue sky. window Ihear the growling roar of One day, I remember. a leaf a bulldozer drifted in the window, and then two Nancy Menefee more followed. fluttering softly down to land on the classroom 000' They say everything ('all be replaced yet ellery distance is not /lear so I retiiember erery face ~ of everyOlle wno put me here . I see my Jight come shining from tile west down the east anyday IIV\\.' allY day new I shall be released ... -Bob Dylan " ... for the Earff is your grandmofher and mother, and she is sacred. Every step that is taken upon Her should be as a prayer (the Earth is where you will live and increase. This Earth is sacred and so do not forget! Every dawn as it comes is a holy event, and every day Is hoi iy, for the light comes from your Father, the Great Spirit; and also you must remember that the two·leggeds and alrthe other peoples who STand upon this earth are sacred and should be treated as such." -Black Elk,anOglala Sioux HolyMan in The Sacred Pipe "Most mysterious was the Indian reverence for land ... Earth, they believed, was mother of all. .. Even today I have watched Indian people loo"k sadly over the miles of plowed ground of South Dakota, wIshing that the land were returned to its primitive beauty, undefiled and giving to man and animal alike the life only land can give. Instead of beauty one sees a storm in the distance, ribbons of dkirty highway going west, the earth cut into a giant perverted checkerboard with no beauty and hardly even any symmetry." -Vine Deloria, Jr. Sioux Indian, In Coster Died For Your Sins POEM OF THE WEEK THE STUMP Today they cut down the oak, Strong men climbed with ropes in the brittle tree. The ,:ha~st of a gasoline saw was olue In the branches. It is February. The oak has been dead a year. I remember the great sails of its branches rolling out greenly, a hundred and twenty feet up, and acorns thick on the lawn Nine cities of squirrels lived in that tree. Today they run over the snow squeaking their lamentation Yet Iwas happy that it was coming down. "Let it come down!" 1 kept saying to myself with a joy that was strange to me. Though the oak was the shade of old summers, I loved the guttural saw. Donald Hall Poem of the Week is being sponsored by Contrast. All faculty, staff, and students of the college are urged to submit works of art, poetry, and fiction to Nancy K. Barry, Box 76. .,~------------------------