Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (May 3, 1989)
Red Ball It is lost Just as a mother somewhere has lost this child, just as this child, as many of these children, as lost her childhood, to the streets. Tears slip down the child’s cheeks, mixing now with the falling rain. They leave a clean trace of sorrow in the coal and dirt of the streets. They crouch along the pavement at home, in their crevices and doorways. We try to pretend we do not notice them. We speak in loud voices of our busy day. Too busy to be bothered. Suddenly, from an unseen alley, a small child runs into me. I stop.... My world has been disrupted by a child of another. The woman reaches out to the child. Gently, sympathetically, she stoops, and pulls the child’s abused hair back, away from her tiny face. She wants to help this child, We all want to help. How? We, of the street, watch silently, but alert; ready to protect, if necessary. No one knows the child, but she is one of us. She was chasing a small red ball. but she has disturbed a woman form the crowd: a woman with a red hat and scarf. Moments ago, this stranger avoided our eyes, now she searches them. The tiny face stares up into my own. Tears still fall with the rain. I am so sorry. Who are you? Where do you come from? Where is your mother? The child falls softly into my arms, and buries her face in the warm folds of my jacket The child stares up at me, with pure blue eyes, through dirty blonde hair which falls brazenly across her pale, thin face. She is no older than six. She is trusting, caring, vulnerable. Soon the woman is gone. She is swept, once again back into the crowd of her world, escaping the bitter wind, and the falling rain of the streets. The child turns to us on the pavement, She waves her tiny fingers. We are cold, damp, and hungry, but we gaze at this tiny child of hope and we wave. We wave at her, with her tattered clothes, her worn shoes, her dirty face, with a shiny new quarter clutched in her hands and a bright red scarf wrapped around her tiny shoulders, for now. The red ball bounces into the street It rolls down, picking up speed as it is caught in the stream of rain water and filth. It rolls toward an open drain. We all watch helplessly as it vanishes into the sewer, beneath the city, beneath the streets. It is lost. Just as a mother somewhere has lost this child, just as this child, as many of these children, as lost her childhood, to the streets. Tears slip down the child’s cheeks, mixing now with the falling rain, into the sewer, beneath the city, beneath the streets. by Me-Lissa Cartales NOVEMBER 14,1988 Lyhn Baker Poor little child Marrying for love Thinking it is right OH, MY ACHING BACK! MY SACROILIAC IT FOLLOWS ME AROUND ALL DAY AND WHEN I GO TO BED IT CAUSES DREAMS OF ANGRY SCREAMS THAT ECHO THROUGH MY HEAD WHEN I AWAKE MY BACK STILL ACHES BUT NOW MY HEART IS HURTING FOR THE THINGS I DREAMED I SAID IF A WISH IS WHY I DREAM THAN IT WOULD SURELY SEEM I MUST ASK FORGIVENESS FOR WHAT I AM THINKING AND SEND MY BAD BACK BACK TO BED!!! Bonded to a ring The rest of her life Such security To which she clings Secure in ignorance in pain Secure in locks from freedom and chance Virgin in white Virgin to life If not from man Virgin to light by Elys Carr inches L* a* b* 1 39.12 13.24 15.07 2 65.43 18.11 18.72 3 49.87 -4.34 -22.29 4 44.26 -13.80 22.85 5 55.56 9.82 -24.49 6 70.82 -33.43 -0.35 7 63.51 34.26 59.60 HR 8 39.92 11.81 -46.07 9 52.24 48.55 18.51 3 10 97.06 -0.40 1.13 11(A) 92.02 -0.60 0.23 12 87.34 -0.75 0.21 13 82.14 -1.06 0.43 14 72.06 -1.19 0.28 15 62.15 -1.07 0.19 3 3