Mandala 2024

MANDALA Northfield Mount Hermon Literary and Arts Magzine

2023 - 2024

Table of Contents Cover: Maya Baudrand ’24 Title Page: Izzy (Isabelle) Young ’24 1. Kimberly (Yu-Chun) Chen ’26 2. Sasa (Alexie) Kolowrat ’24 3. Julie (Leyi) Su ’25 4. Izzy (Isabelle) Young ’24 5. Claire Takeuchi ’25 6. Karennahawi Barnes ’24 7. Jessica Zhang ’25 8. Michelle (Minxian) Tang ’26 9. Kimberly (Yu-Chun) Chen ’26 10. Mark Koyama 11. Bonnie He ’27 12. Alex Tse ’24 13. Jessica Zhang ’25 14. Esther (Xi) He ’25

15.Bonnie He ’27 16.Jessica Zhang ’25 17.Claude Zhang ’24 18.Kimberly (Yu-Chun) Chen ’26 19.Jessica Zhang ’25 20.Maya Baudrand ’24 21.Alex Tse ’24 22.Mark Koyama 23.Julie Su ’25 24.Claire Takeuchi ’25 25.Claude Zhang ’24 26.Taylana Pabon ’24 27.Kimberly (Yu-Chun) Chen ’26 28.Alex Tse ’24 29.Maya Baudrand ’24

When the Poppies Bloom Tufted yellow heads swaying in the grass Fog consumes him - a wet, hot, thick abyss, His lips tingling, their ultimate kiss, Waiting to shatter - thin and brittle glass; Permanent state of paradoxical sleep Reflection of the same sinister hues, Birds chirp, bees buzz - nothing stops the ill ooze; The red petals emerge and they all weep.

Sticky dust on abandoned plate and bowl, Tourniquet on the Family and Soul, Alone but together in disrepair Surviving trunks - sitting alone and bare; Their lengthy, severed limbs, lost - buried deep, The red petals emerge and they all weep.

Give us back what was once lost (1) Give us back what was once lost.

Let us reconcile the truth cope with the missing and no more.

(Give me back my life.)

Give us back our home.

The adolescence abducted the riddance of their heritage.

(Give me back my life.)

Ónhka ní:se? Yonnyà:ton kará:ken kanyatare’kó:wah ne rón:kwe.

Wa’takerihwanón:tonhse’.

Yonnyà:ton yethi’nihsténha onhwéntsya ne yakón:kwe.

Tsi taonkwatonhwentsyoníhake nikatyérha.

But you have not won— nor will you ever.

We will grow our hair, mend the cuts you cast upon us, and build upon the lives you stole.

I will take back my life, the one that was once lost.

As the chopped hair fell to the ground Our tongues cut out Forced to speak the words of god though he is not ours.

(I cannot speak to my brothers and sisters, Nor can I connect to my grandmothers and fathers.)

Who are you, a man made from the white foam of the sea, to tell me, a man made from the earth herself, that I need to change my ways?

I am the beaten and bruised.

I am the whipped and hit.

I am the assaulted and abused, used for their sexual pleasure.

I am the young man who lost my braid, the sweetgrass that once grew from my head being crushed by your foot.

I am the girl that lost my dress, the gown made by the grandmothers– has now been shed, taken off by your sinful hands.

Second Name You know what’s funny? Your common name.

Like the Ngyuens, Zhangs, Li’s. The stuff of us That’s Americanized and cheap. Everywhere, I’ve been hearing your garbled name & I’m sick of it. Be more original, please.

Finish your poetry. Turn down the ivy.

I know you weren’t happy. I don’t think I was Happy either, all shut out from the world & capricious, splintering down the Achilles, Tearing through downtown in the freezing cold.

If we could have another go around, I’d give you everything you deserved.

I’d cling tighter to the shards of light Fracturing shadow branches on your hair.

Remember it better. How your name Was always more elegant in Chinese & how the verses we wrote each other Would always be ours, anyway.

If we could have another go around, I’d learn our mother tongue better.

I’d stuff all your names into my crowded heart And keep them there.

Linoleum

The swallows in the clearing fly The seven-ten moves slowly by And on the shoulder of the road The Queen Anne’s Lace is overgrown.

Mosquitos in the twilight Spiders in the eaves August days tremble and die Under Maple leaves The years have passed, the dog is old The evening gradually unfolds And when the lads go home to sup The crickets take their fiddles up The linoleum is worn Where the storm door scrapes August night is less forlorn Where the light escapes.

The swallows in the clearing fly The seven-ten moves slowly by And on the shoulder of the road The Queen Anne’s Lace is overgrown.

My First Love Was The Other America The uglier, other America, hidden out of view, Dwindling in the soot and soil of empire, her jagged

But who loves them? Who shelters them? You will. Your first love was the other America:

Elbows wedged between the masses, head creeping Out from the underpass, heaving like a sick dog.

Your neighbors, the common people.

The world was disgusted by her. I loved her. She Was my unshakeable hope, the thing that endures Even the rain of bullets, the pelt of police batons, The exhaustion and rootlessness of living In this ragged America; lovely America; broken America. Before you were born, she was the warmth Of soup kitchens across the Bowery, the smile Of children playing in the streets, the recitations Of veiled women after the call to prayer. She was The jailbirds and the flight of doves, The itinerant and the refugee, The tangle of limbs in a dark classroom, Schoolchildren facing the barrel of a gun.

Between us now there are a million Americas Suffocated by the crush of this nation.

Peer into the cracks and you’ll find them.

The girl down the road who spoke two languages.

Before the world handed you bullets, you loved As children do; free of category, free of condition.

Your first love was the other America.

Your memory of her makes her eternal.

The Birds I cannot Tell them About my Sparrows.

But between us, They nest here And sing all day, Because plumage Or dimorphism Teaches them how To love. Tomorrow They’ll learn to want.

Tomorrow, these luggages And bottles will crack open At the TSA, and your critters And stray feathers will cause security Delays. Here, there are more foreign birds Than telephone lines, the whole slew of distance Flyers present at a graduation. Forgive them for their Exhaustion. Come August and they’ll depart for new lands.

They’ll take their provisions and fly northward, as the

Migrants do, as the vagabonds and stragglers

All come and go; the species

That always leaves.

Instructions for Trying Again You’ll tear the roof off this house (you need to know) Is what my mother says (about my anger) Two nights ago when I’m found in a ditch (the water up to my chest) Trying to run until failure (enough to breathe in) But I could never be her: (pliant and violently perfect) Easy to sway and mellow out (but I am a perfect opposite) Easy to hold until laughter comes about (sweet things I devour) Always, I am a forest fire (brandishing canines on it) Holding anger in a clutch (grind my teeth on it) And blow up mountains about it (the soul of it) All a wasteland viewing pleasure

(shredded to oblivion.)

But secretly I wait for an embrace

(though it’s you with the knife)

And it’s agony to stand here

(sharp edge pointed right at me) When abandonment takes

(I’m still willing to let fester)

When your sharp nails graze

(the wound of an honest voice)

I admit to waiting for laughter

(and the sound is sweet when it’s not there)

And like my mother, yield to affection

(plying me to release this matter)

So come back to me, come back;

I, too, will yield.

It could be It could be the worn blue Upholstery In the window booth at a somewhere diner — how it’s cracked With age and fixed with duct tape.

It could be how It feels to slide Into the booth When it’s the middle of the day, it’s slow and the waitress is nowhere To be found Cause she’s out back Having a smoke.

It could be Something like That.

Claude(Wei) Zhang - 2024 Julia Swanson - 2024

EDITORS YeJin Han, Faculty Advisor

Jaymee(Lai In) Yeung - 2024 Pauline Cardonnel - 2024 Lospher(Siyi) Liu - 2025 Poppy Merrill - 2024 Christie Wang - 2025 Lottie(Charlotte) Walker - 2026 Beatrix Donovan - 2025