The Rise

The Rise

Dan E. ’27  

         During the lockdown, my family needed a morale booster. My mom came to the rescue with two bags of bread flour and yeast. She needed a bread recipe that would make the most amount of loaves with the least amount of bread flour, because bread flour was very limited. She found a recipe for “Buttermilk Bread” and decided to make it. The ingredients are bread flour, buttermilk, Kosher salt, and yeast. My mom started to perfect the bread by making it over and over until my family really started to love it. She would let the bread rise overnight then put it in the oven in the morning. I would smell the dough baking in a Dutch oven from my room. The rich aroma of buttermilk and dough would flood our house with a delicious smell. The appearance of the bread is round, crispy, and bumpy with a nice golden color. The bread feels crispy on the outside and on the inside it feels soft and fluffy. The bread reminds me of what a wheel of cheese looks like. It tastes very soft and has a hint of creamy milk. But when you put a little bit of butter the whole bread explodes with flavors rushing into your mouth like a chemical reaction. The bread has a very deep meaning behind it. The bread represents resiliency during an unprecedented time. It shows resilience because we can still enjoy life in a hard time. The bread also represents family. Because every night my mom would make the bread, and we would gather together at the dinner table and enjoy it. Lastly the bread represents the dedication my mom has for learning a new skill just to bring a little more light into my family.

Thanksgiving

Theo A. ”27

Friends, family, food

I love it and you do too

Crisp leaves and dead trees

 

Stuffing, turkey, sauce

‘Round the table and we talk

Fun six feet apart

 

Cornbread, cranberry

Stuffing and sauce, cinnamon

Gravy, the cold, warmth

 

Of family and 

Fire and food that fills us

Pumpkin spice flavor

 

Potato, pumpkin

We are all eating something

Marshmallow, stuffing

 

Giving thanks to all

Leaves reminding us of fall

We can hear our call

 

We put down cell phones

We shut off the lights inside

We take in beauty

 

No school, no homework

No friends, I’m lonely, save me

Covid restrictions 

 

We see others too

With masks, gators too

I like holidays

 

Great memories made

Great Thanksgiving on my plate

Great food that we ate

 

Thanksgiving this year has not ended, we have lot’s to give thanks for,  say your thanks 

The space race  

Mariana D. ’28 

Debra 

I couldn’t take my eyes off of the tv, it just didn’t seem real. I watched as the rocket went up, with fire strong enough to make an explosion. They Called it the juno 1, and inside was the first ever american satellite, the explorer 1. I could hear my mom calling me for dinner, but I blocked all of the noise out. Even dinner couldn’t get me off this couch.

The next thing I know I am already 15 minutes late to dinner. I look over at the door to see a very upset mom, looking at me with a disappointed face.  she didn’t have to say anything i already knew what i had to do 

“Sorry mom, it will never happen again”.

 At least that’s what I say, I am late to dinner almost every night. every time i say that it will never happen again it always does. So I marched out of the room with my head down, not even thinking about looking at my mom.

I sit down at the table with my head still down. And when I finally look up, I see my sister Linda giving me the stink eye. I wanted to give her one back but I was already in enough trouble.

After dinner I decided to read a newspaper about the rockets. If you haven’t already noticed, I am used to rocket science. I want to be a rocket designer when i am older, but my mom and dad want me to have a family. I pick up the newspaper and read every bit of info I can get. What I found most interesting is that the man who is making theas amazing rockets, was actually working for the Soviets before he surrendered to the americans. Now he is one of the best rocket designers in the country. His name is Wernher von Braun. 

My parents and my sister were never really that interested in what was going on between the Soviets and the Americans. But me and my older brother James have always wanted to know who was going to win, and hopefully get a man into space. Of course my brother wasn’t as big of a fan then me, he would never miss donner or disobey my mom to watch rockets with me.

 

 

To think of love is to think of thee.

Why sky art blue? Why trees art green?

All things must pass. Thy chicken, my youth.

But not my love for thou

Anytime I hear the wind blow, it will whisper the name Popeyes chicken tenders 

by: David G. ’27

Twirling Personas

Jordan L. ’26

Black, white

Up, down

Left, right

Spinning like a top in my own head

Which is which?

I turn right, but my brain moves left

I walk upstairs, but still I feel down 

My head pounds as I try to make sense of

Dueling sensibilities

My personality splits and as I laugh and joke with friends,

Inside sometimes I cry

I long to reveal my true form,

But right/left now, I’m not sure what that looks like

 

You know how you have two different 

Personalities around different people, well

What if those different personalities were really two separate people?

That’s how I feel

Always feeling like I’m hiding something 

From someone all the time. If even if I  

Know I’m not, it still feels like it.

Feeling like I’m the fake one

Trying to please others but not myself

It’s exhausting at this point

What about me?

The Last One 

Suka N. ’25

God, everyone’s so excited. Momma’s smiles finally reach her eyes and Poppa’s usual sharp yells have softened to bright guffaws. My pretty red dress that pops against my melanated skin screams at me in utter joy. 

“The first in the family to receive some kind of teaching,” My aunties gossiped in the jam packed kitchen, lines of paint peeling from the heat of the smouldering heat of the pot. The same heat making the little beads of sweat across their foreheads, “Never thought she’d live to see it.”

“Oh hush,” Auntie Shannon says sharply, “It won’t be the same as it is outside.”

They scoff in unison. “Says the lightbright who wouldn’t have toiled away like we would have in those cotton fields.”

I never truly knew what they were talking about, the associations lost on my young mind. My father sucked his teeth, scolding them for mentioning ill about the start of our family’s name being etched into the ivory plaques of recorded history. My eyes drift to my uncles playing dominos in the small showbox corner, mumbling and muttering,

 “This is it, this the one. The little bird finally flying away from this heavy nest.” 

Their words left a soft indent on the front of my mind, like the one a soft touch into a marshmallow makes when you need a numbing distraction from the world. Instead, this seemingly innocent indent refused to float back up from my mind until the late hours of golden dusk. Finally, the lulls of sleep were too strong to ignore, and I drifted off to the rising sun peaking just behind my torn up curtain. It was too late before I realized I had spent one second too long on a lingering thought before morning came. The dim lights of the hallway dust the very front of my eyes, a warming remnant showing the overflowing emotions of celebration for the great journey ahead today. The urge to smile extended on from yesterday made an appearance on my face as well. So I emerged from the bed and tiptoed across the hardwood floors damp from my mother’s deep cleaning just before. As I made my way to the freshly cleaned bathroom, that vibrant red dress made an appearance at the corner of my eye. Yet this time, it looked like it held some sort of haunting malice behind its moonlit face. My mind flashed to the thoughts of the night before, still not seeming to have let upon me. My reluctant feet padded on, still pondering what really made the dress switch to its original mood. This thought made the morning a quick blur, another hidden glint behind everybody’s eyes as well. But it was not malice I saw this time, but pity sprouting its gray seed in the back of their tussling minds. I watched the plant grow and bloom into a beautiful brussel with little dots and a dash of tears falling from its veins. I put on the red, velvety dress and immediately felt little pricks from the tag’s corners digging into my skin, creating its own secret hiding space between the folds of the dress and my rattled undershirt. As the car sputtered down the road leaving black spurts of smoke in its wake, I watched the neighborhood houses drift farther and farther while the buildings grew taller and taller, the length of them all turning symmetrical, the silence between them ringing louder than screams. Suddenly the car sputtered to a quick stop. I stepped out of the car, and the building in front of me screamed the song of silence most of all. One by one, my parents and I walk up to the brass door and ring a doorbell, those little circle knobs that I’ve only seen a couple times in my life. As the door swings open, a woman’s narrow eyes zero in on me, and she sneers, 

“Oh, you’re the last one.”

And with those simple words, it all makes sense. The sudden looks of pity on their faces. The open yet silent conversions about the day to come. The sudden change in my big bright dress’s face. It’s all tied together now. For my dress was the same color as the woman with the pale face standing above me at the door. And the dress cried and cried at the sight of its long lost mother.