The Trillium

Spring, 2006

The Trillium

The Trillium is the official arts publication produced by the students of Trinity College. The ideas expressed herein are not necessarily those of the faculty, staff, or adminis-tration of the college. Entries are judged on the basis of creativity, thought-provoking ideas, and freshness of style. The student co-editors do not know who the authors of the entries are. Managing Editor: Justin Swanson Co-editors: Erin Allums

Joshua Held Jamie Smith

Lindsey Willicombe Layout: Liz Eglsaer Cover: Sun Among the Rushes

by Katie Spencer Title Page Artwork: Trillium, James Allen Faculty Advisors: Cliff Williams, Production Marmy Clason, Editorial Copyright © 2006. This material may not be reproduced by any

means in part or in whole, without written permission from the authors.

April, 2006

CONTENTS

STEPHANIE MOELLERS Sobre Yo About Me MIRANDA WENGER Bird’s Eye View of Chicago ANNA FAFINSKI Wandering Mind TITUS HATTAN Epiphany RYAN MOXLEY Dirty Reflections ANNA FAFINSKI Internal Scarring LINDSAY NYBERG The Pond TITUS HATTAN A Broken Silence ANGELA JORGENSEN Day to Day TAMI BURKE South China Sea Shore ANNA FAFINSKI Tell Me DANIEL FRAMPTON Hope Newborn HEATHER PHILPOT Mother’s Love HEATHER PHILPOT Letting Go TITUS HATTAN Hubris RYAN SMITH Bird Shot DANIEL FRAMPTON She Dwelt Among

Unspoken Ways KATIE SPENCER A Woman’s Gaze JOSHUA HELD Goodbye, White Witch

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STEPHANIE MOELLERS

SOBRE YO ABOUT ME En un momento . . . In one moment . . . Estoy pensando, creyendo, I am thinking, believing, esperando hoping Yo sueno I dream Yo vuelo I fly Me elevo I soar Yo siento I feel Inteligente, libre, hermosa Intelligent, free, beautiful En el proximo . . . In the next . . . Estoy evitando, dudando, I am avoiding, doubting, termindo fearing Yo escondo I hide Tropiezo I trip Yo fracaso I fall Yo siento I feel Estupido, atrapo, y fea Stupid, trapped, and ugly Por que esta asi? Why is it like this? Porque soy humana Because I am human

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MIRANDA WENGER

BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF CHICAGO

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ANNA FAFINSKI

WANDERING MIND 2:00 a.m. and sleep is nowhere near. My mind hovers on islands of misty thoughts, as day’s dreamy thoughts appear. No harbor to rest from the rush of never-ending onslaught thoughts. Just vast miles of accounts of delights lost.

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TITUS HATTAN

EPIPHANY God moves liquid as The surface of water. And my pale- moon heart And blood- red thoughts Cannot still A reflection like that.

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RYAN MOXLEY DIRTY REFLECTIONS

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ANNA FAFINSKI

INTERNAL SCARRING My spirit marks as my body marks, bruises just as easily, even protected by this flesh the scars it wears fade slowly. The hands that touched so quickly skin so rough nails jagged— through my skin, and blood, and bone grazed and touched my spirit that in my body sits enthroned. These fingers left their gritty prints on that great airy mystery locked inside my chest as lungs stained by so many cigarettes. These fingerprints black and brutal, they smother and murder, but on my skin no scars show my skin shows flawless, smooth, and pure and my spirit, alone, is critical and, alone, struggles as it puts on its bandages.

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LINDSAY NYBERG

THE POND

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TITUS HATTAN

A BROKEN SILENCE When the space between Two souls is filled, Like the soup-cup In the hands of fingers chilled, I’m at peace. It is dusk. The edge of leaves Burn bright against the darkness.

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ANGELA JORGENSEN

DAY TO DAY Clarissa tapped her pencil against her desk as her fellow classmates furiously scribbled their creative work on their notebook paper. She couldn’t help but feel a bit of disdain for her professor—among the many things he taught in General English 101, every other Monday he wrote provocative statements, questions, or quotes on the board and gave his students twenty minutes to write creative poems, stories, essays, or whatever they felt like writing. She didn’t feel much like writing anything at all that day, though. Professor Duvitt had written the question, “What would you do if you knew you had only one week to live?” on the board, and while her classmates all seemed to have plenty to say on the topic, Clarissa continued to draw a blank rivaled only by her blank paper. From the side of the room, where the professor stood at a podium with his laptop computer open before him, he called, “Five more minutes.” For a few moments, Clarissa felt a slight flurry of panic at the possibility that she might need to hand in a totally blank paper for her assignment; she pulled her paper forward and began to write. “What would I do if I had only one week to live? I would . . .” Then she had to stop again and think. The seconds ticked by, and she imagined she could hear the second hand move on the professor’s watch. Finally, for lack of anything more creative, Clarissa wrote an essay based on her own lifetime goals, compressed to fit into a week’s time span. She described traveling the world to see its sites, meeting the famous people she’d always looked up to, and composing what would surely be the world’s next hit song. By the time the exercise was finished, Clarissa had written a good page and a half, but it didn’t ring true. Although she breathed a mental sigh of relief to be finished with the assignment as the professor began his lecture, she found her mind wandering back to the question, probing her subconscious to find what she really would do. The question still haunted her as she left class. Out of habit, she pulled her cell phone out of her book bag to change the ring and volume settings after she’d silenced the phone for class. As she flipped open her phone, she tried to remember the last time she’d used it. She’d called her mom three days ago to ask her to send money, and she’d talked to her dad a week before that to

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discuss her plans for spring break. The transition from home life to college life had been abrupt, to say the least. After living at home all through high school and talking to her parents every day, Clarissa had suddenly found herself three states away from everyone she’d grown up with. She’d promised herself that she’d call someone from home at least once a week in order to keep in touch, but had quickly broken the promise before the first month had passed. Perhaps it was on the contacts list on her cell phone that Clarissa would find the answer as to what she would do if she thought she was going to die. Her family members’ phone numbers were all programmed in, as well as those of her best friends. Clarissa really wouldn’t have wanted to spend her last days on Earth traveling or meeting strangers. She would have wanted to reconnect with the people whom she’d always held dearest. As she walked back to her dorm, Clarissa smiled a bit to herself as she played a mental game with herself, trying to determine whom she would call first and what she would say. She tried to guess who would want to know why it had been so long since her last call, and who would be polite enough not to mention the intervening months since their last contact. She listed those friends to whom she would tell of her fate, and whom she would humor for the sake of their sensitivities. The macabre diversion was strangely entertaining. When Clarissa reached her dorm room, she removed her coat, set her cell phone on her desk, and turned on her computer so she could begin some homework that would be due in an hour. As she waited for the computer to load, her eyes flitted back to her cell phone. Of course, so far as Clarissa knew, she was in no danger of dying anytime soon, but all her thoughts of friends back home made her feel homesick. Perhaps she could spare ten minutes from her work just to chat with some old friends. As soon as the thought occurred to her, Clarissa dismissed it. She didn’t really have anything to say—there had been no major changes in her life since she’d come to college, and too much time had lapsed for her to have any meaningful conversations with her friends about the small, day-to-day trials she faced regularly. She certainly wasn’t dying, and had no reason to reconnect with anyone. Her phone sat, on but silent, while Clarissa began her work. The clock indicator on the phone’s screen changed from 3:59 to 4:00, representing another hour that separated her from the life and people she’d once loved.

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TAMI BURKE

SOUTH CHINA SEA SHORE

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ANNA FAFINSKI

TELL ME Put it in perfect words for an imperfect ear. Speak strong with that voice worth enough words to overflow the night. Toss it not aside with a careless tongue, but let it roll out as ocean waves fit their way to sandy shores. Prove it, with the way it lights off your lips, push it, and prop it up with truth in it. Each syllable a deep kiss might be, if said by those lips that only a god’s bow can do justice. Let it be spoken hushed, whispered into the blank silence. The speech itself will make it sound, the words said will soar and clap the clouds.

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DANIEL FRAMPTON

HOPE NEWBORN The biting, chill but fresh wind of redemption startles me, numb resignant; hope gasps and starts to breathe again, coughs at the disturbed dust, stares around this cluttered attic and sets to work digging tunnels deep through the stone heart, through unclogged artery pumps red blood warm. Freshly purged quarry filth scrapes skin raw, newborn flesh heart cries at first dawn. The world as we knew it gone in an instant, yesterminute’s dead stare— impossible dream. Impossible as winter memory among the sons of spring. As once by firelight was told: born again, again anew. “How can the old go back to the womb?” New hearts for the destitute though wandering in blackness stars slept in the garden and fled the sword rode the fenceline to nowhere hell lukewarm spit through the gutter fell and spent the savings on prostitutes. “Just as in the day of old, words spoken over chaos flood, as wind is felt, though unseen blows the breath of God, the Spirit breathes,”

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Born of spirit, spirits new: as once was told, still now is true. The kettle drum and trumpets sound the coming of this whisper’d dawn. March on the lame and dance they soon in this new town, where upside down the hopeless trample their condemner chained by their redeemer meek, the firstborn new, the most reviled, himself a homeless beggar mild. As they pass by I join the ranks, I who have failed and wasted all. Taken to front I lead the march from despair to kingdom come.

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HEATHER PHILPOT

MOTHER’S LOVE

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HEATHER PHILPOT

LETTING GO

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TITUS HATTAN

HUBRIS You’ve a fascination My fascinations can’t follow. I’m a far Too-weathered reef. Entertaining a notion That it’s been your pulse Through my veins All these years. And that frightens me Because I’ve seen The way your innocent eyes Cut through a man’s chest And move through To more promising lands. But know That cliffs form Out of my shoulders And across my sinews. To move beyond me Is to forever Breathe thinner air. For if it is your heart That beats in me, I pulse through you.

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RYAN SMITH

BIRD SHOT

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DANIEL FRAMPTON

SHE DWELT AMONG UNSPOKEN WAYS You steal every eye, fair lady— hair entwined as wreathéd woodbine, lips full red as dawn, then sunrise smile, soft steps around thee lithe fawn, singing quiet sound— but you’d be as mere ash-heap shadow or a whisper in the whirlwind’s roar, if all turned away and with humble prose cried “There goes the girl with the golden soul!” a treasure of worth unseen, untold.

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KATIE SPENCER

A WOMAN’S GAZE

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JOSHUA HELD

GOODBYE, WHITE WITCH April is the kindest month, Snipping icy seams, spinning green skeins to Clothe the land. The August gown, gone, leaves Sullen shreds, but kind Spring sews new garments, For nascent grass leaps up as the last leaves Lunge like lemmings to their eternal rest. Even as our discontenting winter Leisurely transforms to glorious summer, The appeasing Aprilite sun summons Cheer, who hyper-hates and hibernates when cold. Come, O sun, and banish forever this Blast-phemous reign of winter’s cruelty.

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