06.10.04: New design. Got rid of the art and tape trading sections since I don't really trade
anymore. Lots of new poetry.
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I imagine you walking to the north shore of Long Island
Watching the waves eat away at the peppered sand, imagine that it taught
You and in turn taught us about the land and the water and the leaves,
Granted us a view into our own lives, and gave
Us a fuel to ignite the flame,
With mere ink, and water
With which to extinguish it. Did you look across the water
Of the Long Island
Sound, just to see Connecticut on the other side? The taught
Blue skyline shifting to brown and green. It leaves
Me disenchanted, knowing that on the other side there is always land, gave
Me, sitting at Oyster Bay with my flame,
A smoldering sense of solitude. And I picture you, weaving by the heavy flame
Of the sweet, adipose smell of a kerosene lamp, words, images from water
Into verbal photographs of the atmosphere of Long Island
Where in a one room schoolhouse you taught
With more soul than books, staring at the leaves
Of grass that you gave
Life. Was there anything missing in the words you gave?—
Passed down your experience in the form of a flame
To generations of clumsy, stubborn youth wandering from the water
On Montauk Point to Queens on the other end of Long Island,
Who were taught
Nothing more than asphalt suburbs and cardboard leaves.
There’s nothing that leaves
That feeling of grim hope and a pain in the chest, gave
Me the sense of the awe of the sky, like the threat of your sunrise, an ascending flame
Copied in marker tacked over my bed, caused veils of water
To flow over my eyes onto a map of Long Island,
In a school where we were taught
By memorization; students’ taught
Faces staring blankly at a blackboard. And now industry comes and leaves
The towns rich and poor, built and built; they ignore each other, where they once gave
Us a sense of continuity. A flame
Fueled by pollution will burn on where moonlight once washed over your hands in the
filthy water
Off of Long Island.
--Molly Herrick 04.17.03
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