News at Buckley

Buckley Students Earn National Scholastic Art Awards

Buckley students earned three Silver Medals in the National Scholastic Art Awards this year, in photography, painting, and poetry writing. The Scholastic awards are given across the country regionally every year, but only a few receive national medals.
Senior Rachel P. earned a silver for her photograph, “Heads Down,” junior Olivia G. earned a silver for her painting, “Branching Out,” and junior Jem B. was awarded a silver medal for his collection of poetry, including the poem, “View from Gilley,” reprinted below.

Congratulations to our Griffins on these prestigious honors!

View from Gilley

Gilley Field is all that’s left of the canyon 
now, a close-cropped grass plateau stretching 
the chasm between a cul de sac of loping hills. 
On that far side, the exit, the 
one that doesn’t abut brush, boys gather, 
savoring the shade, eyes 
sweeping the empty field faster 
than they themselves can. Cleats tied tight, 
they gossip, they joke, they revel in the athleticism 
of youth, the quickening of their hearts— 
what they don’t do is look back. Down 
the hillside, the brush tumbles away and 
the Valley opens like a lens— 
and I wonder 
what these boys would see 
if they looked past the small canyon before them 
and into the larger one beyond. Is this aperture 
just a glimpse back home? Or 
something greater—a home in the future, a 
family, a resting place? The 
world is as large as we want it to be 
a dark marble in a pocket, or the ebb 
of coastline, and for these live-in-the-moment boys 
beside me, it is the span of a soccer field, refracting 
only the sound of competition in 
the lazy autumn air. What they see 
in the Valley is a mystery— 
time moving forward and yet 
always remaining at Now 
All I know is 
when I look down the Valley 
I recognize a place I will return to 
as a grown man—not a home, 
for home is elsewhere now— 
but another stop on a journey 
I haven’t taken yet.
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