Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Just In Time

We are back, and we are happy to be here after some early October technical glitches.

This year our team of student editors is excited to bring you the best Holicong has to offer in artwork, poetry, and prose.  It all starts with this post and our annual coffeehouse on Friday, November 1 (doors open at 6PM).

We hope you will join us here each month as a reader and for our upcoming live event! We are thrilled to have snuck in our October post . . . just in time!


Mother

She cries and she weeps
Her children dying at her feet
The future is bleak
What happens when nothing remains?
She tried to save them
She gave them fire so they could stay warm
She gave them wood so they could stay dry from the storm
But they took the wood and cut all the trees
They just wanted more
And they used fire to burn all of her gifts for them into the ground
And they continued to conspire
Using fire to take more
So, she cries and she weeps because her children are dying at her feet
She gave them power so they wouldn’t have to cower
But they glowered and took more
Saying she hadn’t given enough
So she gave and gave and gave
But suddenly, as she was weeping for her children
There were no tears left
They had taken all her water
She tried to help them
But they stole her body
Soon she was condemned
her life was fading
And they still kept taking
Now she is dying
Silently watching and lying on the floor
She tried to give them her world
But they just wanted more

by Eva F., Grade 9





Up Here

I trudge up through the knee-deep layer of soft gold. The plastic toes of my boots are the only thing keeping my body facing the blinding light ahead of me and over the ten people behind me. Skis strapped to backs, tips of boots shattering and compacting the small flakes of white. I hear my bones chattering in my body and I feel the wind whipping over my cheeks, my wrists, that one section of skin below my ear that I can’t seem to ever fully cover with the fleece that runs from my chest to the bridge of my nose. And yet the blood rushing to my face does nothing to keep me warm. I think I might just be too numb to feel a difference.
Tears glass over my lower lid and seem to freeze, turning my vision of what lies ahead of me into gold, blue, and black blobs. The blue grows above me, black diminishing in my peripherals, gold sinking to my feet, and I stop in my tracks, lactic acid pouring into my thighs and down my leg. I exhale crystals that blow off over the trees and join the clouds. Ice caps over giants that reach into and grab onto the sunlight, trees rippling as a gust weaves its way through the stretching arms of each evergreen.
Up here, the air sits better in my lungs. Up here, the sun pours over the skin that escapes the layers I wear. Up here, the heat that rises up over my neck to my face fills my chest with accomplishment.
Kick. Snap. Kick. Snap.
Push – and I’m off.

By Claire P., Grade 9


404 Error

Unfortunately, that page could not be found;
See, the fabric of time has been slowly unwound.
Some data may be lost, and it may belong to you,
But fear not! For the government knows just what to do.

They’ll send a ship to space to rewind the quantum string;
in theory, this will have us set and regain everything.
But one misstep could cost it all and end life as we know it,

And just in time, at that, we’ve got some diagrams to show it.




Trajectory is crucial, and such applies right here;
‘Tis one basic parabola, of which we have no fear.
“Now wait a minute,” you may ask, “is that not a black hole?!”
Such is why we’ve got a robot and not a human soul.

If all goes well, we’ll soon be off to a land we do not know;
We’d hope by then the rip in time has largely ceased to grow.
Will this tall tale go on longer? Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore,”
Just be warned about the risk before you dread that 404.



by John M., Grade 9