Botetourt County Public Schools (BCPS) graduating seniors from Lord Botetourt and James River high schools received their recognitions and diplomas in ceremonies held last week in Salem and Springwood. Congratulations, Botetourt’s graduating seniors!
Lord Botetourt senior Jonah Clark shared a poem he wrote for his graduating ceremony.
Photo courtesy of BCPS
“Forest of faces” by Jonah Clark, Lord Botetourt senior 2023
Where is the proof that we have changed?
It is the hand-me-down clothing exchange,
Only it’s friends, not shoes, we’ve outgrown long the way?
Is it the brothers and sisters who we know cannot stay?
Could there be joy looking back,
On pictures of our past, waring clothes which are now too small,
Seeing the old days through picture frames, laughing at the height we did lack,
But now like trees we’ve grown tall?
Yes. We are like trees.
We have outgrown the soil, and now our roots are thirsty.
We feel the urge to run like rivers and bend our knees.
We know the sacrifice of growing, but it’s necessity.
The proof of our change is in the mundane,
Our backyard swing-sets, gone years without play,
Our bruised baby blankets, our mothers tuck them away.
These fond parts of childhood, lost to growing-pain.
Photo by Matt de Simone
And it is a somber thing to know,
That we won’t share next February’s snow,
But it is best this way.
Come Autumn, nothing gold can stay.
We are like a grove, us and our faces.
For years we have loomed in all the same places.
We’ve grown and bloomed with every new fall.
We make up a forest, but it’s time for the saw.
For now, There is a familiarity in this forest of faces,
A faint fondness, in the falling of red leaf.
Come Autumn, the orange glow mountain laments over past places
The golden hills still remember us in remnants. We see time as a thief.
Now we are tall, with blooming branches,
We are rooted, Deep in Damp Dark Dirt.
Now, this moment, is when Time has decided we are ripe,
Ripe to be cut and crafted by life.
So the logging trucks come, they come every May.
We, the young bark, go willingly, knowing we can’t stay.
Us, the youthful trees, fall gladly, thankful for the ride.
The trucks leave full by fall, our parents feel them as unkind.
Time, again, drives the fresh cut logs to the Carpenter of life,
Pruning with saw and sand, bending wood like river’s bend,
Until we are lumber of the highest grade, free of knots and finished smooth
Life creates us, the beams of a new age.
Forest of faces,
How time will change you.
From seed to stump, now building to higher places,
The work of strong struts creates the tallest view.
So, be cut of this old soil
Remembering the days gone by,
While looking forward to the new.
Fall hard to the forest floors,
With a grin, with the excitement of change.
Be uprooted,
Be chiseled clean by hard times,
Knowing the reward will be strength.
Be Scraped smooth by adversity,
Because the splinters of the past will not fall away without a fight.
Be mended by failures, remember them well.
Be made strong with time.
Then, after all of the sanding down is done,
Find the house you wish to build strong.
Join with fellow joists – bound by steel screws,
Leave here to create something new.
Forest of faces, we go now, adieu.
