"The Sun Goes Down on High School"-- with inspiration by Steve Lawhead

Students were given a poem by Steve Lawhead ("The Sun Goes Down on Summer") and asked to model their own poems after it, titling them "The Sun Goes Down on High School".  Here are a few of our thoughts on the subject...

"This is serious.  This is college ball.  Game over."

"The time has come for me to move on, leaving an empty chair in my classroom, a vacancy in the locker I once occupied, and goals ready to be accomplished."

"I've spent countless hours perfecting them, and now I must wait, the wait for that priceless piece of mail to arrive at my house."

"I'll have to start over/New school, new friends, new me?"

"I hope I'm good enough.  I suppose I won't know until I'm there."

"It'll be professors and textbooks and laptops and upperclassmen telling you what to take."

"Mr. and Mrs. run away, leaving Professor and Doctor."

"I'd give anything to make high school stay a little longer, and not disappear."

"And I can only hope but wonder if I've made my impression here; will I be missed or simply forgotten?"

"Twelve years to get to this point.  Now what?"

"The school looks the same as always./It's a warm place dyed red, white, and blue."

"I pull in the parking lot one last time/Class by class, they slip away."

"I walk across the stage thinking that the end is near."

"It's going; I can feel it slip away, and it leaves a warm, new sense of freedom from the endless routine of everyday, and then the fear sets in."

"I hold fast to the things I'll long to remember, and to my relationships that may not last."

"In these halls, in these rooms/experiences have changed my life./I am not who I once was."

"School will start again.  But I won't return."

"School will be over soon.  And everything I've become used to will change, and the parking lot won't be so noisy anymore."

"It's leaving; it all appears to be drifting away, and it leaves a cold, shallow feeling in the place of heated, driven school spirit and hatred for Walker Valley."

"No, instead I have to figure things out for myself,/and nothing will ever be handed to me again."

"High school wasn't meant to last forever.  I took it all for granted.  Now I'm left wishing."

"As this chapter closes, I remember the earlier pages, when life was simple, like a picture book./ However, I wouldn't wish for these high school days to stay."

"People expect it.  I expect it./Expectations are over.  You're on your own.  You can go do what you want.  You can 'be yourself.'"