Fall 2011

The Trillium

The Trillium

The Trillium is the official arts publication produced by the students of Trinity College. The ideas expressed herein are not necessarily those of the faculty, staff, or adminis-tration of the college. Entries are judged on the basis of creativity, thought-provoking ideas, and freshness of style. The student co-editors do not know who the authors of the entries are. Managing Editor and Typist: Jasmine Kojis Co-editors: Lyle Enright Jaime Kowieski Jacob Slaughter William Smith Jenelle Taylor

Cover: Smoke on the Water by Becca Spellman Title Page Artwork: Trillium by James Allen Class of 2004 Faculty Advisors: Cliff Williams, Production Brad Fruhauff, Editorial Copyright © 2011 This material may not be reproduced by any means, in part

or in whole, without written permission from the authors.

November, 2011

CONTENTS

TIMOTHY GIOVANETTO Seeking She’ol—A Prayer JONATHAN CASTELE The Red Army Choir KELLEY GOEWEY One Day LISA KOWIESKI The Grand Puppeteer BECCA SPELLMAN Repalle LISA KOWIESKI Indian Woman MICHAEL STEVENSON Out of the Ashes CONNOR SPURGEON Yorkhouse, Victoria HANNAH NELSON Peace MERCEDES DOYLE Where I Once Stood LAURA BROWN Stains of Black Tea JONATHAN CASTELE Stairway Waltz of the Widower KARA HILLINGER Passage

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TIMOTHY GIOVANETTO

SEEKING SHE’OL—A PRAYER Have pity, Great Forbidder, and forgive My expedition, for defiance is The lattermost concern. But I will dig With ragged claws, and sinking, seek to drown These thoughts, though in the end I fear I must Return. And why return without reprieve? This flame should shake no more, I think. To think I’ve burned with burning grief for naught! God knows How long I’ve prayed these pleas—the thought seems such Absurdity!—but I have fought; though dying, I have fought. If Paradise were lost today, and hills Of barrows green attained, what could I gain Tomorrow in the fall? For I have knelt At Styx and Lethe; I’ve licked the coin and I Believe. I do not trust the ferryman At all. These useless passions of the will You crush and break beneath Your heel, but still I speak and ache to bring them back. Conduct The angels to their game, but let me go My doleful way: Dantean pilgrimage through Hell and back. No—never back! Judecca calls; that’s not The me I meant at all! They came to hear Meursault’s mad, roaring crowd. Can Simon tell Off God’s own Son when Your (and not my) will Is done? I’d bear the stern admonishment Out loud. Laodicean letters leave The battered heart unchaste, I see, yet not A graze to lashes forty-nine. Then sear Me with the gold assayed; I entered Hell But for the flames! Let justice live forever, death be mine. Incensed, forbearing God who reigns and makes Desire the damnedest pain, I disregard

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An arbitrary will. But ere the end Of agon’s race when life is snuffed out and Erased, I bear a proposition to You still: to see, to climb that purging Mount, And yielding all, to give account of how I struck You, bloody, to the tree. We smash The Sisyphean stone; Abaddon rings With strident tones of “Ab’ba, Elō’i, oh Elō’i!”

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JONATHAN CASTELE

THE RED ARMY CHOIR “Союз нерушимый республик свободных Сплотила навеки Великая Русь!”* I listen now to the misguided ghosts of a fallen regime As they proclaim their service on bended knee Knowing not that some of them would die in battle And some be murdered by their leaders and fathers after they return

from war And some would starve to death in the fields as they served their nation And the rest would live out their lives in their homes As their empire crumbled around them I listen to a snapshot taken in time In a time when their passion was unmatched Where anguish and determination Met art and love Creating the patriotism so famous So feared by all the world They would gladly offer their lives in exchange for a perfect society A society forged in a nation Fraught with division, civil war, corruption Famine, economic crisis, despair Philosophical and sociological cruelties A society dreamt by purists Built on the backs of sheep and men Who could not have known any better And so they sing They sing their lungs out Weeping tears of sadness for their loss Anger for their enemies And love for the grand machine that they were a part of The harmonies lock And cold waves ripple over the land

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And the ghosts of the cavalry ride through my eye Still passionate about what they once were Still blind to the consequences of the world that they fought for Artillerymen etched in eternity Resolution in their face Salute the anthem Defenders of the capital rush to their place And ghostly bullets fly across the plains of my soul The soloist begins Four years after this recording He could have been killed in battle Who can know? Only God and Stalin For now His ghostly expression of pained love for his comrade Is locked in the anonymous memory That he has become How I wish I could have known him But for now I have this passionate music And it is enough God bless his soul * “An unbreakable union of free republics Welded forever great Russia!” – National Anthem of the Soviet Union

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KELLEY GOEWEY

ONE DAY Reflected stars fade on the water. How can you call me your daughter? Shadows shift in endless art. My hands are clean, but not my heart. “This is love . . .” your blood for me. I wait beside the sunrise sea. “It’s not enough!” my desperate scream. A shiver breaks my half-formed dream. My shadow swallowed up in light. Heavy soul, consumed with blight. My head bent low against the sun. I’m drowning dry; I am undone. My unworthiness, a theme. The sea sends back the sunset’s gleam. Why would you have chosen me? Darkness damps the sparkling sea. The moon before me and above. I cringe beneath relentless love. Motionless beneath the sky, I know my sin and yearn to die. I question this, your holy will. The tide flows out, my soul grows still. I cannot see, yet stumble on, And broken, hope for some pale dawn.

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LISA KOWIESKI

THE GRAND PUPPETEER

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BECCA SPELLMAN

REPALLE

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LISA KOWIESKI

INDIAN WOMAN

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MICHAEL STEVENSON

OUT OF THE ASHES

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CONNOR SPURGEON YORKHOUSE, VICTORIA Do you remember when our lips would press together at eyes’ first

sight How that feeling graced your head, tucked into bed, basking in morning

light And you know I’ve only been here since an hour before you could

wake As I crept in through your door so as to riddle up your sink just right Do you remember how our hearts could not help but to skip a beat While we were elegantly enthralled in the most passionate summer heat For those long moments, and then to end, to be replaced with wedded

life And we would watch the lights change into untimely magnified retreat Do you remember all the nights when we drove all the others away We took shelter in my car from the rain through every clearest day We would stumble up the stairs so still, and we never saw the seconds

go by How I cherished lock and key deep in the midst of selfless wage Don’t you think we were too young to be so old inside our hearts Where it was bliss not knowing how the end could meet the start You always knew that the fear was separated from its longing source So we drew in ever closer to send it long and far Were we to know that we had created such an intimate art

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Would we think ourselves too young to be so old inside our hearts?

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HANNAH NELSON

PEACE

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MERCEDES DOYLE

WHERE I ONCE STOOD

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LAURA BROWN

STAINS OF BLACK TEA I’ve been stretched through time. Walking among a city of ruins and shattered smiles. This is where neon lights glow for purchasing empty hearts. It keeps me restless in a cheap hotel room with carpets stained by black tea. I hear his deep voice shatter the tiles as she exits the room. The hallway echoes with the clattering of plastic heels again. Her shaking hands sketch out these eyes. The undefined graphite lines surrender to the great divide. There are many who carry stones with scarlet hands. But the infallible one has won authority yet again.

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JONATHAN CASTELE

STAIRWAY WALTZ OF THE WIDOWER An old man descended the wooden steps Leading downward from his second floor apartment With hands feeble as maple leaves He gripped the banister on his right Leaning on his ancient wooden cane on his left As the smell of burnt coffee and old perfume wafted through the air He struggled past each individual step Every pair of steps exactly the same as the last Yet each pair drained him His right foot near the banister landed lightly Like a calm before a storm Reminding him of the graceful way he once danced When he was a younger man His left foot plummeted heavily on the next step His cane barely saving him From gravity’s beckoning call That left step jarred and shocked him Rattling his bones Shaking long-forgotten memories out of the depths of his heart Through his veins All the way to the front of his eyes Blinded by this phenomenon He took another graceful right step Countered by another jarring left step The pattern punctuated with sighs and groans The overflow of memories completely blocking his vision The arthritis throughout his body throwing his balance slightly To the left

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And with this three-step waltz Light right Heavy left Blinded groan He continued down the stairs The lights were low as the soft hum of a neighbor’s television Led him on As he danced closer and closer to the ground floor

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KARA HILLINGER

PASSAGE