It’s a long time since I went to school and memory can do strange things to what actually happened. The photo is certainly from my old school, but the poem takes teaching in a whole new direction, making school more bizarre than real …
CLASSROOM
three aspens
tied with purple ribbon
I laid on teacher’s desk
she placed them in an inkwell
and used the stems
for letter-writing
fireweed she planted
beside a pond
for the flourishing of bees
honey we shared
behind the woodstove
on cold mornings
first published in The Outreach Connection