The Rosemary Spell Read Online Free PDF Page A

hurries into the room.
    Most classes, kids kind of straggle in, but in Mr. Cates’s creative writing class, everyone comes right in and sits down.
    I sit near the front, and Adam slides into the seat next to me.
    â€œHowdy, pardner,” he says in a bad cowboy accent.
    â€œHi, Adam.”
    â€œDo you have the book?” he whispers.
    I tip my head toward my backpack.
    Mr. Cates perches on his desk. He runs fingers through his curly hair to get it out of his face. He adjusts his glasses. “Page one hundred seventeen, people,” he says, carefully turning pages, like the book is really special, even though it’s just a paperback poetry anthology.
    He started the pods-of-five day with a poem by E. E. Cummingsthat didn’t make any sense at all, but then somehow it did, and we all had to write without rules, which was surprisingly hard. Especially for Adam.
    Today’s poem is by Shakespeare.
    â€œGoing traditional today,” Adam murmurs.
    â€œThis one will have rules,” I whisper. “You’ll love it.”
    Mr. Cates starts to read in a rich, layered voice that lifts the poem off the page and delivers it personally to each of us.
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Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
    Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme . . .
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    â€œPowerful rhyme!” he repeats, and the corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles.
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But you shall shine more bright in these contents
    Than unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time.
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    â€œSluttish!” Josh Baum snorts.
    Mr. Cates stares at Josh over his book, managing to communicate disdain without looking unkind.
    â€œSorry,” Josh mutters.
    Mr. Cates raises the book again.
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When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
    And broils root out the work of masonry,
    Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
    The living record of your memory.
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    He stops. “That syntax is tricky. Let me paraphrase. Shakespeare says neither war nor ruin can destroy the record of your memory. And what’s the record? Josh? Miranda?”
    Miranda flips her hair. “Uh, the record is the poem? Is that right?”
    â€œSure is.” Mr. Cates beams. “Nothing will destroy your memory because it lives forever in rhyme. This. Powerful. Rhyme. Next line.”
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’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
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    â€œWhat is ‘all-oblivious enmity’?”
    No one speaks up.
    He prompts, “Enmity?”
    â€œLike enemy?” Micah suggests.
    Mr. Cates nods. “Yes. It’s a feeling of hostility. So then, what is ‘all-oblivious’? Adam?”
    â€œSomething about forgetting,” he says. “Like oblivion.”
    â€œRight. So . . . forgetting is the enemy, and what defeats forgetting? Memory! Yes?” He looks around the room to make sure we’re all following and continues.
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’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
    Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
    Even in the eyes of all posterity
    That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
    You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.
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    He lets the silence hang in the room before he asks the now-familiar question: “What does it mean?”
    I say, “It means the person he loves will, like, live forever in the poem.”
    Adam adds, “And the poem lasts even when other kinds of monuments are gone.”
    Mr. Cates cocks his head to one side. “You said ‘other kinds of monuments.’ Is the poem a monument?”
    Adam sits forward. “Yeah, isn’t it? The poem is a way to . . . to hang on to the person, even though they’re gone. That’s what monuments do.”
    â€œBut it’s kind of dumb,” says Kendall. “Monuments are, you know, stone and stuff that would totally last longer than a poem. I mean, a poem is just a piece of paper.”
    â€œIndeed,” Mr. Cates