We now had an idea and a design. The picture
began to form, yet still it seemed to be just a group of historic and
contemporary students standing in front of the school and its classic
entrance, but nothing more. Then the Wildcats added poetry to the picture:
first Whitman's idea "Just as you feel...so I felt" Whitman's
poem, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" conveys the belief that nothing
separates spirits, neither time nor space. Just as these students felt, so
the poet, and others walking the halls of Central felt. Almost chemically,
almost tangibly the feeling in the room changed. Whitman's spirit was still
alive, and the made the idea for our painting come to life.
Then someone thought of Langston Hughes'
lines "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair..." Someone
envisioned stairs in the painting, balanced on either side. Langston Hughes
actually walked the halls and climbed the stairs in Lawrence schools, and
his poem "Mother to Son" gave just the spirit and advice most of
us need: "Don't you turn back/ Don't you set down on the steps/ 'Cause
you find it's kinder hard./ Don't you fall now/ I'se still climbin'/ And
life for me ain't been no crystal stair." Together we had added the
poetic spirit to the painting, its breath of life, its metaphyscial
landscape. The poem will be beside the painting, where there are also real
stairs the students climb every day.
It was decided. In this painting, historic
characters would stand among contemporary students, teachers and principals,
conveying the sense that despite time, we all share the same struggles and
triumphs. The school has seen and known us all. Each has walked in Central
time.