Poetry by Zachariah Wins Award

"The Land of the Dead", by 8th grade Camelot student Zachariah Claypole-White, won third prize in the Mary Chilton Award category (grades 6–8) of the North Carolina Poetry Society's student contest for 2009.

The land of the dead
It is a bleak place
set aside for the eternally
resting. The trees cling
to the last leaves of summer
like a man clutching
at the last spark of his life.
The bushes' roots selfishly cling
to their prizes, not wishing
to abandon them
to the mother.
The wind and rain lazily
sweep the graves, too tired
to exert their full wrath.
Lost in this place
searching for those
never known
yet known.
The tears of my predecessors
weigh my boots, pulling me closer
to the dead.
The grass is withered
like its occupants.
Although I never knew them
tears still mix with the rain.
I place a stone on the graves
just as we have always done.
We who walk
the land of the dead.

Zachariah Claypole White
November, 2007
revised September 28, 2008

Environmental Science Class Builds Solar Ovens

Some of these suckers got up over a hundred degrees Celsius.

Sr. MAPP: Medieval Madness

The Senior M.A.P.P. class, as part of an ongoing history unit, has created a number of medieval structures!

Visual Art by Viola

Bound in Lavender

By

Zachariah Claypole White

Their bodies now rest beneath the ground,

But their souls remain bound to heart in lavender.

When memory floats like a tired cloud on a dusty horizon,

When pictures grow dull like ground in drought

Unable to have the seeds of life sown within their worn frames,

Still love remains,

bound in strands of lavender.

Groan

I used to flow with water, But now I won't. I used to sing with fire, But now I can't. I used to run with the wind, But now it hurts. Why? Because I'm grown up. - by Amelia