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.