The Wind Comes and Goes

The Wind Comes and Goes

Selected by Gaetane Lemaire

Description
The wind can carry more than just paper, smells and leaves, it can carry away your feelings. The wind comes and goes, like sometimes people or emotions.

Synopsis
In these poems, the wind is comfort, that comes when you need it and then goes. 



Night Breeze Roderick A. Jones
Wisper in the Wind Samantha C. Fifer
The Wind Kawaina Gordon
Wind Child Sahar Alive
Fly With the Wind Alexianna Brandhagen
The Wind Amy Lowell
I'm Writing to the Wind S. Micheal Down
As the Wind Blows Josephine Chifundo Likoya
A Day at the Beach Adam Shipley
My Life Ibukun Sobande

Stereotypes, being prejudice and not understanding what’s going on can lead up to making mistakes

An African-American teenager—Trayvon Martin—was shot by a volunteer neighborhood watchman—George Zimmerman—on February 26^th. Zimmerman claims to have shot him for self-defense because he was wearing a dark hoodie and looked “suspicious” when the 17-year-old was just coming back from the supermarket with a pack of candy for his brother and an ice tea.

            How can prejudice lead to injustice? In this case, Zimmerman shot Martin because he looked “suspicious”; he didn’t even know for sure that he was armed. Just because he was black and wore a dark hoodie, Zimmerman took away the boy’s life. After killing for no reason, he is still not arrested and still wonders around the streets, but if he would’ve been black and killed a white boy instead, the consequences could’ve been much worse. An example would be in To Kill a Mockingbird; Scout, Jem and everyone else think that the Radley place is haunted and that Boo Radley is dangerous, but as the story goes on, Boo just turns out to be nicer than what everyone thought when he helps Jem and Scout.

            I think that, as individuals, our responsibility is to take action when you see something like that happening—we shouldn’t just stand there and watch without doing anything. If you see something that you believe is not right, stand up for you opinion and don’t just let the person doing whatever you think is wrong do it without anyone stopping him/ her. By stopping someone’s bad actions, you can make a change in the world or even just in that person’s heart.

            When people fear what they do not understand, they start doing things that they don’t really think about just for self-defense. In the case of Zimmerman, he fears that Martin is going to hurt someone and so he shoots him without thinking about it because he doesn’t really understand why an African-American boy is wondering around the streets, even though it’s not that suspicious he is scared that he would attack him and so he shoots and kills him.

            When you’ve heard bad things about a race your whole life and then you see someone that you think is up to no good, you do something that you don’t mean. This is how stereotypes affect people’s behaviors. Maybe Zimmerman had heard bad things about some African-Americans and them being dangerous and it became a stereotype which means that he thought it applied to all African-Americans. He probably thought that Martin was up to no good and without thinking; he did what came to his mind the fastest.

            Stereotypes, being prejudice and not understanding what’s going on can lead up to actions that aren’t your best choices, but that come to you before the others. Everyone makes mistakes and some of them are worse than others; some you can fix and some last forever. Zimmerman—in my opinion—should be sent to jail because Martin wasn’t attacking him or entering his property; he was just walking home from the supermarket. Zimmerman just didn’t consider the truth and went with his first impression and made a mistake that can’t be fixed.

            

            

To Kill a Mockingbird, chapter 8 summary

Winter started with the coldest weather in Macomb County since 1885 and the death of Mrs. Radley. Atticus went over to her house and when he came back he said she died of natural causes. Jem made me interrogate him about his visit and if he saw Mr. Radley, but he said he didn’t and that was about it.

I woke up the next morning, opened my eyes and felt the bizarre, cold weather around me and not the usual, sweltering air that filled my room all these other years. I stood up and walked towards the window, but what I saw was not what I expected. Our backyard was white.

“The world’s ending Atticus! Please do something!” I dragged him to the window and pointed. He said it was just snowing. I didn’t know what it was because I had never seen it in my whole life, neither did Jem. I watched as every snowflake fell to the ground and assimilated into the rest of them.

The phone rang and Atticus picked up. When he hung up, he said it was Eula May and she said that school had been cancelled so Jem decided to make a snowman. We didn’t really know how, but Jem seemed to have an idea. He walked to the backyard and I followed him into the snow.

 “Don’t walk on the snow Scout. You’re wasting it.” He looked around, “There isn’t enough snow, maybe Miss Maudie will let us borrow some of hers.” We walked over to her house. When we asked her if we could borrow her snow she told us to take it all. We gathered up as much of it as we could, but there still wasn’t enough. Jem started gathering dirt and building a snowman shape out of it. Then he started covering his masterpiece with snow.

            He permitted me to cover only the back, saving the public parts for himself. He made it look like Mr. Avery, looking cross and everything.  A stick of stovewood completed his meticulous work. Atticus was very impressed with our creation, but he said we better disguise it. Jem got Miss Maudie’s sunhat, put it on the snowman’s head and jammed her hedge-clippers into the crook of his arm.

            It seemed like only minutes elapsed before I was awakened by someone shaking me.

            “Baby, get up.” He said and handed me my bathrobe and coat. I put them on and then got my shoes and socks. He pulled me out of bed and out the house. By then, I understood why he was in such a hurry. Across the street Miss Maudie’s house was on fire. Atticus pushed us towards the Radley place and I remembered the warm summer, when we conspired to put a note in the house to get Boo to come out. I looked back at Miss Maudie’s house where the fire got stronger. I thought it was imminent that our house would catch on fire next, but Atticus didn’t seem to worry about that right now.

            We heard shouts and then Mr. Avery’s face appeared in the upstairs window. He was getting some furniture out but men shouted to him and told him to get down. When he climbed through the window, he got stuck. I buried my face under Jem’s arm and didn’t look up until he shouted, “He’s got loose!” We watched him walk across the porch and slide down a pillar until he slipped, fell and landed on Miss Maudie’s shrubbery.  

            Smoke started rolling off our house and Miss Rachel’s house. There was noise all around the neighborhood. Houses started catching on fire one after the other and it wasn’t until dawn before the men started leaving.

            The next day, we found Miss Maudie looking at the smoking black holes in her yard from the calamitous night.

            We were drinking cocoa, when I noticed Atticus staring at me. “I thought I told you and Jem to stay put.” We said we did, but he pointed to the blanket around my shoulders and asked whose it was. I didn’t apprehend how the blanket got there and looked at Jem for answers. He blurted out that Boo Radley had put it there and that I had been so busy looking at the fire I didn’t notice when he came up behind me.

            "Just think Scout, if you'd just turned around you'd've seen him." I wished I had and I wished I did.

Letter to Lily

March 23^rd, 1984

Dearest Lily

            I miss you more than you can imagine. One year without seeing you already felt like a lot but now five years have elapsed and it feels like a lifetime. I hope everything is going fine in college and that you are doing well. I can’t wait to see you this summer with Zach and June and Neil. August is going crazy, trying to find a way to fit everyone in the house.

            I read the book you wrote--the one about when I was apprehended and you came and got me out of the hospital where I was getting cured after that calamitous time when those men had beat me. I remembered when I was laying down in shackles and you emerged in the room and we escaped to August’s house. While I was reading it, I felt like I was literally going back in time and I was reliving that whole summer, when we enjoyed May’s cooking, when we splashed each other with the hose on that sweltering July day, when we were interrogated and you made up lies, and when we slept in the honey house. This feels like so long ago, yet I remember it so well, I remember how August, May and June assimilated us into their lives. This meticulous writing makes the success in your next book imminent. When you come back, everyone is going to lionize you.

            Over here in Tiburon, everything is still the same. There isn’t much noise and it’s only me, August and once a week the daughters of Mary. We don’t have many visitors. Zach has started his career as a lawyer and it seems to be working out better than what we had thought. He has won a couple cases and supported someone who had been arraigned, while having to face many dissensions. He hasn’t visited this year and we are also looking forward to seeing him this summer.

            We are waiting for you and Zach’s conspiracy to repaint the house, but we are keeping the same bizarre pink color that May had picked out.  August says that it keeps her close. She misses you so much, you know, and we can’t go by one day without hearing your name, sometimes from me and sometimes from her. We can’t wait to see you and we are only hoping for time to pass by quickly.

Lots of love,

Rosaleen

The First Step is The Hardest

The Problem We All Live In by Norman Rockwell is a painting from 1964 around the time when Negroes were segregated. The painting takes place in the southern part of the U.S. In the painting 6-years-old black girl, Ruby Bridges, is walking down the sidewalk on her way to the William Frantz School, the first school to accept both black and white students.

 In the picture, Ruby is walking in the middle of bodyguards that are all wearing grey uniforms while she is wearing a white dress showing how she is pure. The sidewalk wall has words written upon it like, “KKK” and “Nigger” and a tomato on the floor with its stain on the wall, but the girl just keeps on going showing her perseverance to finally make a change.

When people look at this painting they would probably think that change has finally come and they are going to be equal and they will be able to work together now. But when I looked at it more closely, I thought of how things can have different effects on different people and how in this case one little girl can make a big change or at least take the first step.

I think that the artist’s intention was to show how black and white can go together, he showed this with the little girl, who was black and wore a white dress. I think that he was also trying to show how things like that happen every day and so it doesn’t mean that we can’t make changes. The first step is always the hardest, but someone needs to take it to make a difference.

We Fligh Home

This morning we said goodbye to our grandparents and left for the airport. I really didn't want to get in the plane we I had no choice. We waited for our plane in the brussels launge because we were traveling in bussiness class. When the plane started bording we left the launge and got in the plane. I watched movies throughout the whole plane ride to Atlanta and didn't manage to sleep just a little. After 9 hours we got to Atlanta and we had to wait 3 more hours for our next plane to Panama city. The plane ride lasted 4 hours and I was really happy to finally land. A driver from my dad's office came and picked us up. When we got home all I wanted to do was fall right into my bed  and fall asleep but we first had to take out all the luguage from the car. I went upstairs with my stuff and got into bed.

It's good to be finally home. 

The Trip Back

Today we said our last goodbies to the whole family since we weren't going to see them until the summer holidays. We left at about 10:00am and the trip seemed to last forever. First there was so much traffic on the road and all we had to eat were sweets, coockied and chocolate bars and I couldn't stop being hungry. We once stopped at a fast food restaurant but there was a line that was really long even to go the bathrooms. When got home it was like 7:00pm and we were really happy to find out that my grandparents had prepared soup and lasagna. We went to bed almost emediatly because of how tired we all were.