The Seeds of Perseverance

By Mark Price

While the world burns with fiery hate And plumes of smoke surround heaven’s gate, Life persists on a forest floor As death brings about a hardy spore.

Temperatures rise across the globe

And the seas swell from the depths below, Storms plunder the earth and rip up sands As acid rain falls on our precious land.

And adding to the rumble of this belligerent storm, Bullets rip across the earth in a stinging swarm. War unfolds throughout the world with predacious volition And people in America die due to racist suspicions.

Amidst this chaos, a patch of conifers burns, And amongst such malevolence, its innocence is spurned. Yet, as the branches sear away and the trees start to bawl Resin melts from the cones, and seeds peacefully fall.

Despite the world’s terrors, the darkness, the howling winds, The trees have a chance to start over again. And so, the cycle repeats, rebirth, regrowth, We must keep going, our most sacred oath!

No matter our differences, our setbacks, our words, We come together stronger, as a pack, undeterred. We overcome that fiery, that terrible hate, And we find a way, as Americans, to achieve something great.

Unus, qui scit dixitque se didicisse in temporem vir

Duo, homo qui scit sed dicit se non Discire, alter, amice, quis dicat fraus est.

One, the man who knows, but said he learned in time

Two, the man who knows, but says he did not learn

The second, my friend, one might say, is a fraud

J. XXVIII

Amor numquam pervenitur, solum compromissum enim

Perfecta adfinitas amans theatrum est

Love is never reached, only compromise

For a perfect, loving relationship is theater

J. XXLII

Qui intelligens sed clare loquitur aliis inauditis

Inscitior est nihil eo qui scit

Nam qui nihil scit, locus habet ad audiendum

Mi Poeta

By Jake Kornmehl

One who is intelligent but speaks aloud with others having not been heard

He is more ignorant than one who knows nothing

For the man who knows nothing has room to listen

J. XLIX

Caecilius discipulus fuit, nunc uxorem suam defraudat;

Quid nunc uxori agit, hoc etiam

Caecilius discipulus agere solebat.

Caecilius was once a student, he now cheats on his wife;

What he does now to his wife

Caecilius also used to do as a student.

I am Harriet Jacobs

By Nolan Bibbo and Sean Scales

I was born a slave, But I never knew Until six years of happy childhood passed away; My Mother died, I learned that I was a slave

My grandmother, her children divided, Among her masters children, Not one escaped.

Twelve years old, my kind mistress died, My hopes vanished, I had a great treasure, She taught me to read and spell, And for that I bless her memory.

My lover, An intelligent and religious man, I ought not to link his fate, With my own unhappy destiny So lonely and desolate,

In the sight of our master, God breathing machines, No more than cotton planted, Or horses tended to I was a slave Happy days, Were too happy to last