Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli Page B

4
    FIELD TRIP:
    MAIDEN’S LEAP
    She stood here, the Lenape girl.
    She was only thirteen or fourteen, the legend says.
    Here on this high bluff overlooking the ramshackle remains
    of the old steel mill
    famous in the Revolution for making the best
    cannon for George Washington’s army.
    Of course it wasn’t a steel plant then,
    just forest,
    maybe rocks.
    She stood here and then she jumped…
    well, perhaps
leaped,
since this is a
    poem and
leaped
feels more poetic
    than
jumped.

    In any case, down she went to her death,
    thirteen-or fourteen-year-old Lenape girl,
    because her father would not allow her to marry
    the boy she loved.

    Standing here, I wonder things.
    I wonder if she started way back there and
    came running and practically flew
    off the edge.
    Or did she come slowly, like a trickle of water
    across a tabletop that seems to pause
    at the edge, gathering itself
    before spilling?
    If she did stand here and wait—why?
    What was she waiting for?
    Was she giving time one last chance
    to save her? Happiness one last chance
    to happen?
    Ha! Easier to rearrange the stars than
    a father’s mind.
    Did she look down?
    Did she look out?
    What did she see?
    Did she see his face? The boy’s?
    Did she see him wave to her, call to her
    from far away? Did she see the two
    of them running, laughing across meadows
    of chicory and Queen Anne’s lace, flowers they knew
    by other names?
    And his name—did she say it?
    Did she shout it from the blufftop to
    all the earth below?
    Or whisper it, for his ears only
    to hear?
    One thing for sure—it comes clearly now:
    she was not looking down.
    This I know.

    June 5
    Homeschool is out!
    At high noon I celebrated by joining you for smoothies at the mall. Strawberry-banana, of course. Your favorite. We sat together at the last table and talked and sipped. I told you the latest with Dootsie. You brought me up-to-date on your friend Kevin and my friend Dori Dilson and our friend Archie. You told me you’re looking forward to summer vacation. You told me you applied to colleges in Pennsylvania, since now you know this is where I am. You said you think of me every day. You said you sometimes go out to the enchanted place in the desert and take off your shoes and sit there like we did that first time. Only you don’t meditate. You’re not at all interested in erasing your self or me. Oh no. Just the opposite. You close your eyes and you remember. You focus and you concentrate and you remember harder than you’ve ever remembered in your life, and pretty soon you’re sure you can feel me there, sitting cross-legged across from you, smiling at you, Cinnamon in the space between us. You experience me. You relive us. You’re so happy. And then so sad when you open your eyes and realize I’m not really there. That’s when you miss me the most. Desperately.
    Tell me I didn’t imagine it, Leo. Tell me that even though our bodies were in separate states, our star selves shared an enchanted place. Tell me that right around noon today (eastern time) you had the strangest sensation: a tiny chill on your shoulder…a flutter in the heart…a shadow of strawberry-banana crossing your tongue….
    Tell me you whispered my name.
             
    June 12
    Last night’s dream…
    Milk run. Bottles rattle in the racks. Headlights swing through the darkness.
There…
someone in a Dumpster…head down, rummaging…looks up, eyes gleaming like a surprised fox’s…but it’s not that boy Perry…it’s you.
             
    June 15
    I keep thinking about Charlie at the cemetery. Sitting there day after day. Talking to Grace. Remembering. Dozing off. I think he must hate the absolute certainty: knowing that every time he awakes from a doze, she’ll be there. Every time he arrives in the morning with the aluminum chair, she’ll be there. She’ll never again be in the basement looking for the canned peaches. Never again out in the backyard chatting with Mrs. So-and-So, the neighbor. She’ll