June 16-17, 2001
Featured Poet: Suzanne Freshwater
Poem: Whipsnade Zoo
About the Author: Suzanne Freshwater was born in Albertville, Alabama, and will be a senior next year at the University of Alabama, majoring in Secondary Education and English. She plans for an M.A. in English. Click here for background on "Whipsnade Zoo."


Somehow there was a change between here
and Whipsnade Zoo.
I found the “joy” of adulthood.
Dyson seemed good at explaining it —
There was a change —
An ANSWER to this metaphysical question.
It wasn't just Mere Christianity.

It happened after cancer took my mother.

Time was spent afterwards.
Time with Joy.
Time with Arthur Greeves.

What happened didn’t seem to occur
In concurrence with Malvern or Oxford
Or because of my bookish home.
It just happened, me (Jack) and Him.

Somehow there was a change between here and Whipsnade Zoo.

n a motorcycle trip with his brother Warnie to the Whipsnade Zoo, author C.S. Lewis (Jack) considered a recent conversation he had had with the Catholic J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson. Lewis wrote in Surprised by Joy that “when we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did.” Lewis summarized the discussion for his friend in They Stand Together: The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves.

NRO Weekend accepts poetry for publication. For consideration, interested writers should send quality unpublished poems on any subject matter, along with a brief bio, to nropoetry.