School and Season Changes By: Raveena Duggal Walking into school, You feel a warm breeze, Everyone is wearing masks, Scared and yet excited. Students are back in routine, Their knowledge grows, Hand sanitizer is everywhere, The warm air turns cold, Snowflakes are falling, Students have lots of fun, Snow brings laughter, But soon flowers will
Essential Work What work is mine? Offering my full cornucopia, cut from leg of sacrificial lamb? Allowing my rounded fruit to be cupped squeezed, peeled bruising concealed? Resurrecting the ole iron lung, its dependable clatter, the work of being essential noise for those needing reminders of the sweetness of breathing on our own without effort.
From Pyre to Ash: A Teacher’s Duty I’m sorry but I can’t write a poem about going back to school. My pandemic mind is a closet with twenty years of chaos. Unkempt as it is, everything will fall. My job is to hoard piles of artifacts – the art of facts: the tests, markers and
Perceived through hazel eyes. Felt with every beat of your bleeding heart. Lessons taught with every bloom to closing chapter, turning petals in between. Checkpoints of soul’s journey. Insight mirroring truths for evolving essence. A flock of birds feathered with love, change, growth, gratitude. A travel holding you hostage, no direction or destination until you
shattered no one looks at her as she walks to school uniformed, books clutched to her chest passing cars, pedestrians see past her through her she is unremarkable she is scenery. each step to her destination an effort not to turn and run sheer force of will her only glue to hold together her plain
fledge each first day of school we stood beside you waiting for the yellow bus to take you there. we knew you would return our ache temporary. no more busses stop here today we stand beside your car packed with everything that is you this place no longer serves your dreams we each whisper unspoken
A is for Apple Anomalies i) He surprises her with bruised apple poised center stage on her classroom desk hopes the forbidden fruit ferments stirs his classmates into hysterics. Mirror, mirror, in his hand! This university student with gelled raven hair. His mischievous grin, gold-tipped and wide like an unzipped backpack when he sees her.
Slammed into submission by an exercise for the masses. However, we weren’t told. So, confusion, Fear and hopelessness became the new reality. It became disclosure an awakening… a viewpoint a dissimilar perspective. Astonished to see a herd structure, born out of vulnerability and naivety. Slave to the aperture of a narrative that is deceitful and
New Beginnings By: Raveena Duggal It starts off silent, there isn’t a person in sight. Then you hear a small creak, hope rises instead of despair. The sound of the earth awakening, the music of people’s voices surrounds you with open doors. New beginnings await! The economy is slowly rising, places are opening up. The
In A Mist it is the day after and I phone wanting to say a new song has nudged into place though my children play off-key tunes in the other half of my house I phone with all my senses jazzed by the gift of touch that foggy cornet a symphony by Bix Beiderbecke your