you stir and i respond (for a puppy) you stir, and i respond… to press upon you tenderly my love, to bless life and growth like breath on fire, to wash my hands over you with so exactly the pressure of god, as i would want the hands of creation to wash over me, and […]
I discovered the Dawn Redwoods the old-fashioned way: by walking a new path. I’d been climbing my favorite tree in Harvard Yard, the Emerson Tree, looking out over the crisscrossing pathways in the yard between Sever and the gate facing the Art Museums. I wanted to walk towards the Littauer Tree near the Science Center, […]
“Treetises” is a column where I discuss the best trees to climb around Harvard’s campus. I wrote three Treetises—“The Best Tree in Harvard Yard,” “The Tree Trials,” and “Perchin”—during my junior fall, six years ago, in 2018. I left school after that year because I wanted to hitchhike and write. I didn’t plan on taking […]
Weak I can still go to the river. Weak I can still let myself Go where the river flows. This is the freedom I needed— to return this adventure to well-worn waters. Skinvessel I am pulled together as but one temporary wetness,tightly. This is to witness, this […]
Harvard as Moloch By AIDAN FITZSIMONS The political-economic structures of power in society form the bones and tendons of “culture.” The fact that “counterculture” has itself been folded into our general culture signifies the failure of its motivating politics. The narrativized Sixties were not really about flower crowns or tie-dye or even […]
Pruned A Poem By AIDAN FITZSIMMONS Figurine trees pose in the college yard, unclimbable, unfurling branches just above human reach, ungraspable. Today I studied one, circling softly, squirrel mind loud, searching for those subtle stairs only simians sense. They should be there; instead, there’s only stark featureless bark and dead gnarled nubs, wood belly […]
Andrew Gillum Tallahassee Mayor and Florida Gubernatorial Candidate Andrew Gillum visited Harvard. By AIDAN FITZSIMMONS On Monday night, former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum visited Harvard and gave a “Fireside Chat” in the Winthrop House Junior Common Room. Gillum, a progressive Democrat, became a national sensation in 2018 when he ran a hotly-contested race for […]
For Lecture Girl A Poem By AIDAN FITZSIMMONS Red bow unslightly askew I wish I could ask you why Seventy-five degrees tilted From norm, it grasps few Loose limp unwashed hairs But most fall unaware No time in the morning For anything but running This girl four rows down Had to run or […]
A Symbol for Something By AIDAN FITZSIMONS and TUSHAR DWIVEDI A: On Monday, we had a snow day. We didn’t have an actual snow day, but it snowed a lot, and we definitely had a day. J: Snow slushing under my weary, somewhat raggedy boots, I made it to Pierce just before 9am, unwilling […]
Standish Library A Poem By AIDAN FITZSIMONS There is a tall clock on the front wall Facing all of Standish Library Does not tick or seem to move at all It does when you don’t look But the time is often off A giant sun shape Brass, gold, dull, heavy, painted, fake The […]