“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are–as you used to call it in the Shadowlands–dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”
And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them.
— C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle
[Thanks for reading. This post continues our series Verses for Vocation: Poems on the Sacred in Everyday Life and Work. Check out our other posts on faith and work and spiritual growth for more resources on living an integrated Christian life. Subscribe to get the next post in your inbox.]
Summer Break
A final trilling of the bell and the rush to the lockers.
Classmates weaving, waving, shouting through clutter in the halls.
Miss Swanson, arms crossed, has that harried look that grown-ups get:
Disapproval and relief and stifled laughter all at once.
Jerry throws his spiral notebooks in the air like oversized confetti.
In one smooth motion, Susan rolls her eyes and hugs joy and signs Felipe’s yearbook.
And me? I’m looking at my empty locker,
My home books already in my bag.
The noise runs together like a seaside tide,
Leaving me in a kind of quiet hollow to ask:
What else am I leaving here, with the dust and scraps of notebook paper?
Another year stacked inside of me like a brick in the wall.
Things left behind here, in this hallway:
That conspiratorial smile from Becs.
The surge of pride from Mr. V’s “way to go.”
A bad joke with Karl, a better one with Juan.
The last time Jane and I really talked before the crash.
Anxious prayers before exams that turned out not-so-bad.
But I’m drawn out now—the noise returns.
I feel it all lifting off my shoulders, floating down the hall.
The open weeks ahead well up inside me like liquid light,
Shining with adventure and unhurried afternoons:
Lemonade and trips to the cousins’ and camp and comic books.
The time stretches out like a footpath, and my feet are itching.
Twenty years on, I feel the heft of these bricks.
Nothing in that hallway was really left behind.
I carry it here, to my cubicle, to the July light streaming in.
The summer days feel different now: hemmed in, often hurried.
But I still catch glimmers of that liquid, shining light.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Explanatory Notes
- “stacked inside of me like a brick in the wall”: An allusion to Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)”
- “Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.”: An allusion to the gospel song, “This Little Light of Mine”
Series image: The Stevedores in Arles (Coal Barges) by Vincent van Gogh, 1888.
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