Mandala 2016

Mandala

2016

Mandala: An Art and Literary Magazine

May, 2016 Northfield Mount Hermon School Mount Hermon, MA 01354

Table of Contents Predators............................................................ Pablo Borra Paley.........................Cover Wild Cherry Sprigs............................................ Peter Weis.............................................. 1 Photograph......................................................... Emma Lindale....................................... 3 Sin Título........................................................... Ángela Oñate Gómez.......................... 4 Untitled.............................................................. Ángela Oñate Gómez.......................... 5 Drawing............................................................. Kye Nguyen........................................... 6 Ceramic Vase..................................................... Luis Trujillo Bornios............................ 7 Closed Eyes to the Alhambra............................. Yuna Kim............................................... 9 Weed.................................................................. Mark Yates........................................... 10 Drawing............................................................. Bonney Couper-Kiablick................... 11 Playing Cards..................................................... Lauren Downes.................................. 13 The Secrets of Ants............................................ Isabella DeHerdt................................ 15 Oil Pastel........................................................... Yenlin Lee............................................ 16 Abstract Self-Portrait......................................... Adora Webb........................................ 17 For Those Two Seconds....................................... Sophia Glazer...................................... 18 Drawing............................................................. Zitong Xu............................................ 20 Chapel................................................................ Maggie Dunbar................................... 21 Landing Strip..................................................... Simon van Baaren............................... 22 Mixed Media..................................................... Olivia Cleary........................................ 26 Drawing............................................................. Kye Nguyen......................................... 27 The Night of the Last Stars................................ A. Edwards.......................................... 29 Clearing.............................................................. William Roberts.................................. 30 Salvador, Brazil................................................. Emily Miller......................................... 31 Forgiveness.......................................................... Peter Weis............................................ 33 Photograph......................................................... Claire Fishman.................................... 34 Scratchboard Drawing........................................ Ashlyn Koh......................................... 35 Acknowledgement.............................................................................................................. 39 Editorial Staff................................................................................................................... 41

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I dream of painting and then, I paint my dream.

Vincent van Gogh

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Wild Cherry Sprigs for Harry Kemp x’06 It’s probably been years since anyone thought of you and your centuryold saunterings about that place you so desperately sought to leave to margin notes in that rambling narrative you always kept so handy for guests invited and otherwise. But on the way into Provincetown for some business and pleasure, coming down Conwell – surely you remember Conwell – I nearly drove off the road when I saw the sign. They’d named a street for you. I might’ve guessed it.

I suppose that once you’d set your feet there, a tramp like you would find it to your liking, the shacks providing just the sort of romance you always cultivated. You’d likely be disappointed that you aren’t more famous than that, but a street is, after all, a street. And the wild cherry sprigs that litter the roadside call your name as surely as any street sign.

Peter Weis Provincetown 2015 June 30 – 2016 January 17 1

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El tiempo pasa, no muy lento segundos y horas no es momento.

El tiempo pasa, prefiero así quedarme en pausa y luego huir.

Escapar de eso que daño hará; correr rápido no regresar. ¿Para qué buscar? ¿Por qué apresurar?

Da tiempo al tiempo él solo vendrá.

Ángela Oñate Gómez

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The time passes not really fast minutes and hours but not the last.

The time passes, better that way keep it in pause then run away.

Flee from that, which will hurt; run so fast, no revert.

Why are you searching?

Why are you rushing?

Give time some time And It’ll solely arrive.

Ángela Oñate Gómez

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Closed Eyes to the Alhambra the bamboos. i reach out, hands trembling from the kind attempt i am not used to. gently turn the reeds away from me As I, a sinner, Gaze and walk into the holy garden. the pond of lilies. i see the wavering stems in the water the gentle roots medicine and a delicacyI cannot escape worldly thoughts For I am a sinner Shedding my skin in the holy garden.

Am i to be poetic.

Wise, or just pleasing to the ear. as these traditional strings pluck away at the feathers of my life, My pride and plumage slowly flutter off into the wind. one by one.

But i am not hurt.

Now have you ever heard of a winged serpent? i look as the clear pond quivers and tricklesAh, I am sorry, for I bring pain.

Ah that lovely sound, thatbeautiful, serenity. the porch a wooden earth That i bless and I sully with my innocent footsteps My presence embraced, but I know, i am not there.

And i will never be. but the bamboo reeds still whistle.

Yuna Kim

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-The Secrets of AntsEmpty yourself, she said Placing my lungs on a sterling tray to the side of my open chest Empty yourself of person, she murmured Removing my bones like twigs, breaking them under her foot as she went She used sanitized instruments and wore plastic gloves Grabbing for flesh and for blood Empty yourself of unhappiness, she whispered She was getting softer The operating room dissolving, the vast landscape shrinking Or was it I? Shrinking, until I could hear the ants whisper their secrets And feel each particle of land shake with approaching steps Empty yourself of need, she screamed Ripping out my brain God’s finest work?

Thrown across the universe until it hits the wall of understanding Empty yourself she wailed, tears falling from her eyes Into me, and I can feel them I can feel her pain And in that moment I know For her I will be a husk of a man For her I will be void of breath and thought And I will empty myself again and again A gutted fruit, seeds falling from a child’s plate to the grass In that grass The ants make their way underground Carrying the fallen seeds on back And I lie, arms outstretched, eyes closed, breath soft She places her hand in mine.

Isabella DeHerdt

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For Those Two Seconds Inspired by the poem “Blind Curse” by Simon J. Ortiz For those two seconds before the boy bumped his fruit cart into me I thought he wouldn’t He couldn’t not with a face so heedless But he did I was sure he saw us We were there.

His fruits stayed in the cart. Nicely packed stacked and layered by the thousands but one fruit slid off the cart and rolled I wanted to follow it. But I just stood there Saw mom’s mouth moving fast Saw words but didn’t hear them Words flew away, tumbling invisibly Words between mom and boy with cart.

I was focused on the fruit rolling farther and farther from me, saying You just might be significant but you might not be anything Suddenly I couldn’t see the fruit any more.

Saw sandals looked up surrounded by not just the boy with the cart but many boys open mouths shouting words

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fierce eyes fingers pointing on and on, forever

Boys my age but not Boys’ faces contorted in pure rage As faces got closer all I could think was: yellow fruit Would the fruit survive the boys’ fury?

Just when I pictured yellow seeds seeping into sun hot cement My father arrived.

Boys scattered.

They left behind my perfect yellow fruit on the ground I turned around.

One boy apologizing.

If my father had not walked up at that space of split time would my fruit still be yellow or crushed into the sidewalk?

Sophia Glazer

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Landing Strip

I used to have dreams when I was a kid that I’d go running down the street and jump up in the air and go flying and just fly through the air all by myself. That’s what weightlessness feels like.

-Robert Gibson After a long long period of vacancy, I am suddenly aware. Still not entirely lucid, but at least aware. Something in my head feels fuzzy. Maybe... The sand is thicker than I thought, and it takes a moment to shake off what new dust has gathered steadily tonight.

What the hell I am doing in front of the cloudy bathroom mirror at 2:00 in the morning?

As usual, the stained plaster walls are silent. They slowly warp outwards, away from me.

Red-tinged eyes stare blankly through the sea of white splotches that divide us, loosely focused on a select patch of the grainy wallpaper behind me. Make your move, I command through the haze, but nothing changes. Lips curl slightly, and the phantom sneer washes over like lukewarm water. It’s not much of a jolt, but it’s enough to offset me, and when the glass bottles in the corner pull me further, I slip. The red-eyed heckler watches lonesomely through the mirror as I lose my balance. But as I fall, a hand shoots out, my hand, and grabs the stained countertop for support. The rogue limb clings to the countertop, hoists me back up, and steadies me against the wall. For a moment the mirror-man becomes worried that the action, however slight, might be enough to end tonight’s session. But then I stabilize, our eyes meet once more through the mirror, and his worry vanishes.

I’ve known the mirror-man for a long time. He likes to hide between the flecks of toothpaste and grime. He never talks, but I can tell what he’s thinking by the way his eyes glisten in the incandescent glow. I don’t think he’s human, though he could pass for one. There’s something in him that’s remote, too cold to be more than some outdated mechanism, or a program on a faulty computer. The artificial program cannot answer such complex questions as why am I always tired. But it can calculate its airspeed velocity, and regurgitate altitudes and wind speeds with a stomach sickening effortlessness. It can fly.

I’ve always been fascinated by planes. I remember when I was six years old, my older brother brought home a thick, hardback guidebook, only a little bit dirty. It was 370 pages-- more than I could ever hope to memorize, though I did try-- of so many jets you could fill the space between yourself and the sky. Sprawling across the front was a Boeing far too large for the cover, barely tucked beneath the smooth photograph. I was sure that I looked away for a moment it would burst free and fly away. But every time I cautiously returned to the book it remained, waiting. Perhaps it stayed grounded because the little red ribbon in the corner told it to. It’s funny, really, that I loved that little ribbon almost as much as what was actually in the book. An ultimatum, as real as anything could be in the world, dripping with prestige; “Smithsonian.” A name like that demands respect. You can’t put that name on just anyone.

I didn’t ask my brother where he stole it from. We both knew it was something that had happened, and left it alone. Besides, I was too busy soaring through the skies with the Red Baron. Do you ever feel so twisted inside that all you can do is stare up at the ceiling and make promises til the pain goes away? All I knew was that the average jetliner has a takeoff velocity of 130~155 knots, varying on mass and aerodynamics.

The Smithsonian said so.

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I read it through from front to back, and then from back to front, every day of my life.

“Why you always reading that book?” my friends asked. They wanted to play basketball.

I told them that an A320’s fly-by-wire controls provide a total flight envelope and airframe structural protection for improved safety.

“Man, you’re no fun anymore.”

They always ran off towards the courts to shoot free throws, half of which would go wide and end up rolling across the road into the ditch. Every five minutes, someone had to run over to get the ball. It was always raining, so more likely than not whoever had to go got their shoes wet on the grass-perhaps the worst feeling in the world. Sometimes the ball was covered in mud. More often than not someone got angry, proclaimed they weren’t going anywhere, that the system was rigged. Basketball was a shady casino, the type you didn’t trust because your gut kept telling you deserved to be a winner this time around, and you knew it was right.

“Wasn’t my fault! Get the damn ball yourself.”

There was more not-basketball being played than anything, sometimes by a margin of five to one. Someone would have a bad day and push James out of the way and he’d call foul but nobody would care, so James would get mad and check Thomas when he went for a layup, because why not, and then Thomas would keep throwing the ball at Eric too hard to hurt his hands from the catches, so Eric would get fed up and let a pass go wide, and the ball would roll across the gravel with a sickening crunch over to the ditch.

Maxime Guillaume invented the axial-flow turbojet back in 1921, but none of them cared.

I held onto that book for as long as I could. Took it with me everywhere, hardcover tome wearing a hole in the corner of my dull red backpack. People taunted me, sometimes even my friends. You wanna fly bird-boy? You even seen a real plane? Still, it felt wrong to ever put it down, felt like I was leaving a part of myself behind. At night I kept it under my pillow in case someone tried to take it while I was sleeping.

I’ve seen the scene unfold in my dreams at least a dozen times: Police burst in, just knock the door straight to the ground. We’re watching TV, my brother and I, one of his shows since he doesn’t get to relax too often. The police lock eyes with me, and right away I’m guilty. Someone once told me they can see it in your eyes, and mine are beacons. They march right over and take it, just rip the book from my hands like a band-aid, too fast. The handcuffs come out, and we’re carted off to the station to the gaudy tune of a commercial.

Open wounds get dirty when left alone, blackening as they collect dirt and dust. Sand can get stuck in there too, and if you don’t treat the wound fast you wind up with an infection.

I don’t know how I lost it. I just remember sitting in my room one day, watching the trees dance in the autumn wind. The realization approached slowly, climbing through the window on the tail of a cool breeze. It crouched beside me, just inches away, but I couldn’t look. Sweating, I began to study the wallpaper.

Then suddenly the fear lunged forwards and was clawing at my back, ripping through the flesh like damp paper towels, digging past the thick layer of scar tissue so fast I couldn’t even think. What little solid substance it found as it sifted through the sand was ground and chopped, sliced into small pieces, and quickly extracted through the cavity in my back. I slumped back in my chair as it tunnelled through me, plumes of dust spraying wildly. The book was gone.

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For a long time, I sat there as my thoughts danced with the leaves. They were a very soothing orange, my second favorite color. Just watch them flutter, I whispered to myself, look at how they fly. The sand, no longer packed in where it had slowly accumulated, began to rustle around inside, and itched just below the surface. I scratched my chest, lightly.

It’s funny how worked up we get over things. I mean, my brother died roughly when I was eight, and this was at least, what, ten years later? Yeah, senior year I’m pretty sure. Some losses you just can’t take. You fill up the holes fast, as fast as you can, with whatever you can get your hands on. First there’s just a single pinprick on your arm, easily managed. But as soon as you fill the first, a second appears, then two more. They begin to expand, and suddenly you’re racing to close the gaps in your skin before they can get any bigger. It’s no use. Eventually a hole goes unnoticed, and carves you out from the inside. That’s the kind of void that fills up with sand, gives you the illusion you’re whole.

My ribs hurt something awful from the little grains.

I tore the sheets from my bed, threw open every drawer, overturned the couches to check every space. Pictures, posters, torn off the wall. Closet stripped bare, refrigerator cleaned out, shelves toppled. I rifled through the goddamn trash, just emptied it onto the kitchen floor.

In the event that the aircraft experiences a drop in pressure, oxygen masks will be dispensed from the compartments above you.

When something is no more than a memory, does it still stumble drunk into the house at midnight after a long day at the airfield, find you too scared again to get any sleep, and somehow find the courage to hide its pain when it tucks you into bed?

What am I doing?

I’m awake, so awake I’ve slipped over into dream. A prophet of the past, that’s me. There’s so much dust, I could lose myself in the dunes. I can see them stretching on and on…

The lights in the cramped bathroom flicker, voicing their agreement. Rain beats lightly on the roof, but it should move on by morning-- at least, that’s what the newscaster said. I never noticed how much the rain sounds like a drum solo. The playing is haphazard, but heartfelt. The wind adds to the rhythm by singing along, wailing with soft insistence as the minutes tick by. I can feel the melody in my sandstone bones, and want so desperately to join the song, to run out into the night and let the rain flush me clean. But the mirror-man won’t let me go.

I pick myself apart piece by piece. Raising my hand, the mirror-man points accusingly in turn at unkempt stubble on our chin, the layers of grime and sweat on our forehead, the fetid aftertaste of cheap liquor in our mouth. He points at my eyes, the only part of me still clean, and there we pause. Leaning close, I use the glass to peer into them, and can see another face through three points of reflection. It’s too dark and disjointed to see exactly what it looks like, but it feels sturdy, reliable, like good concrete.

No need for a red ribbon. I want to look closer and find the next level down; five points, seven. I want to reach down and fill the holes with something tangible.

On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright piloted the first powered airplane 20 feet above a wind-swept beach in North Carolina.

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And then I hit my head on the glass.

Dazed, I come to my senses for the fifth time that night and ask myself if this will really be the last time, or if we’ll play this game the rest of the night. My gut tells me I deserve to be a winner this time, and I know it’s right. I check my watch again, but it’s out of battery. The mirror-man does the same and I swear he has the time, but I can’t see what it is. He’s definitely smiling now, despite my slack-jawed fatigue.

God, it feels late. How long have I been here?

Something needs to happen right now, in this moment, before it slips through my fingers and joins the rest at the bottom of the hourglass.

My hand swings sharply and connects with the side of our cheek, fist closed. For just a moment our piercing gazes falter, and we clutch at the side of our head. The sting is something awful, but just what I need. I have to act now.

I grab the nearest object and hoist it aloft for all the world to see: toothpaste, extra-whitening, though really it doesn’t matter what it is. Power radiates from the tube and takes me to the skies, coasting at the top of the world at 500 knots. I turn it over and squeeze, squeeze the whole thing into the sink.

Never mind that, I spray it all over the room. Gotta clean up this dusty old place. I work the tube over with my fingers, use every last drop. And when I’m out of toothpaste I grab the shampoo, the soap, the window cleaner, and spray until the aerosol hisses in protest. Streams of bright white and blue cover the floor, the walls, the shower.

In the midst of the frenzy, I glimpse the mirror-man. He’s smiling. In fact, he seems happier than ever. He’s laughing. He’s… I rush him with a handful of shaving cream and begin to smear, rubbing as fast as I can, until he vanishes completely beneath the soft layer.

When at last I am out of commodities, I finally allow myself to take in the colossal mess I have made. It’s something awful- how I managed to get hand soap on the ceiling is a mystery- and it’ll take hours to clean up. But I’d rather clean this mess every day for another twenty years than spend one more second tonight in this goddamn bathroom.

I can’t help but laugh like a fool. Laugh like I had forgotten how to. It bubbles up from deep down like a hot spring, and I can feel just a little bit of the sand drift away. This whole situation makes no goddamn sense. Who ever heard of a grown man painting his life story on the bathroom wall at 3:48 in the morning? The laughter carries me out of the bathroom, down the hall, all the way to the warm embrace of my estranged bed. I’m coasting on the warm thermals of tomorrow. My laughter has wings and turbines and seats 150 passengers plus one pilot and that’s me and I’m flying. God, I’m flying.

I promise to be in bed by 8:00 next time, and feel the turbulence stabilize. Storm clouds are below me now, and I’m still rising, never coming down. God does 8:00 sound good!

I just have to remember to clean up the bathroom before then. I’ve switched to water based products since last time, so it shouldn’t take nearly as long. Just a quick wipe down of the walls, the counter, the mirror… A glob of shaving cream slides off the lower right corner of the glass and falls to the ground with a sickening splat. The echo rolls through the dusty old house, and I could swear it sounds just like his voice.

Simon van Baaren

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The Night of the Last Stars

Let them range the darkened earth ​​Beneath a​ Sienna burnt sky. ​Two figures separate, where mirth A shattered mirror went awry.

Fatigue bruised the lamented wall, As light could not invite the dawn.

Fractured sleep constrained a crawl That realized all empathy was gone.

They believed the refuge was love.

Too soon to melt into hate, While luminous spheres above Collapsed under their own weight.

For Tartarus cost, A terrible beauty is lost. ​

A. Edwards

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Forgiveness The pine-crowded road from train to school Gave LeRoy LeClerc Time to think.

He thought the way was opening for him.

He thought they so kindly drove your trunk He walked the endless way though white pines till He thought the yellow pollen a dust storm fresh from Matemoras It so clove to his skin, his lungs, his eyes.

He thought to run.

The other fellows looked away.

One boy wiped white cloth across his jaundiced face.

Later he woke; remembered: There were twelve times fifteen cows to milk each day.

I drew the lot with fourteen others on the evening milking crew.

Twelve Ayrshires were mine Including, you’ll remember, Rose Franklin, Who won the Secretary’s Cup In naught-six at the fair in Brattleboro.

That’s a lot of milk to milk We did it all by hand.

We came in every day at four Got into milking whites and set to.

You had to be out by quarter to six, So you’d not be late to chapel.

Fast, you had to be.

It took a good ten minutes to milk each beauty; But you couldn’t screw up.

Leave milk in an udder and the herdsman would chew you out for sure.

I chuckle remembering once when boys didn’t show and I had to milk fifteen cows. What joy when I missed chapel, and had to write an excuse to Prof., and threw in Missing elocution on account of being “almost sick.”

He forgave me everything.

Peter Weis

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The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Acknowledgment

The staff of Mandala extends its heartfelt thanks & best wishes for the future to those faculty & staff members who will be leaving the School at the end of this year.

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Editorial Staff Hyewon Kim ‘16 Anna Leckie ‘17 Isabella Lombino ‘18 Eve Pomazi ‘17 MC Robben ‘16 Hann-Yu Wu ‘17 Zitong Xu ‘19 Philip J. Calabria - Faculty Advisor

Layout, printing and binding by TigerPress, Northampton, Massachusetts Environmentally friendly printing since 1985.

Mandala

2016