The First Day Of Kindergarten

Looking back I remember in the very, early years of childhood being filled with love and feeling such confidence. The family was always close. I felt so important like I was the center of the universe, and love wrapped around me like a warm blanket on a cozy winter day. It was a perfect world, and my mother was the author of it. She was my world. Wherever she was at I felt safe. My mother was perfect, I was perfect and my world was perfect.

That all changed on my first day of Kindergarten. I had never been to school before. I had no idea I would have to even go to such a foreign place. I felt as if I was being sent off to war in a scrap yard where wild animals and vicious tigers roamed. I was so scared. The very foundation I was standing on had been shaken and shaken hard. There were loud voices coming in every direction and chaos abounded. I was suddenly aware of weight, my hair, my clothes, and my very insignificance, and of course my lack of ability to make friends. My world was now inside my head and it was the beginning. 

Strangers seemed to peer at me, inspecting me as if  I were a bug. The chatter continued for what seemed to be a lifetime. The grown-ups had all left now, and I was alone with these Martians. Then somewhere in the room, a cry was heard, a loud shattering cry. It was another child screaming with big huge elephant-sized tears running down their face. That's when I felt their pain. It was like my own, and I was crying too. 

Covid 19

Oceans of darkness filling souls of desolation.

Hollow and broken, drowning

screams cannot be heard

only silence

Sing for me sweet distance

sing for me songs of joys forgotten

sing of puppies and hope

For there is no more

gone are tomorrows dreams

never more to be remembered.

never more to be heard

It is but now I hear the Ravens song.

By: Bernice Bowling