poem

Third Grade

The ring-a-ling resounded, announced
commencement of the day and
cessation of their conversations, time
for the repeated early morning ritual.

Past the sound resolving in the air
and the scraping of the teacher’s chair
as Ms Sparks rose to lead her children
in the pledge of their allegiance to
the flag, there was a silence --
connecting
them to what had come before, to
what brought them in from the cars
the buses, or their own two feet padding
down the streets and up the final rise
of hill to doors opening into dusted
hallways and their desk filled room
where
no one spoke a word or coughed or even
thought to poke his neighbor now
but stood silent, ready to recite
imagining every other child in every
school across the land and around the
world standing through this time, their
imaginations big with pride and words
they were only learning then
like liberty
and speaking out, and being counted, maybe
sitting in and pinching pennies to be thrifty
drawing ever nearer to a bigger word
like patriotic
with its magic musical conclusion
sung into the humming air
of morning unison.