Monday's Poetry: "Thoughts and Prayers"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

As impossible as it seems, at least one of my grandchildren is headed back to school this week. Olive, who is seven begins second grade today.

School didn’t used to start this early, I know that because I spent much of my working life in schools as both a teacher and as a principal.  It was too danged hot to start in August, but as more and more schools began to acquire air-conditioning, there was no longer a pressing need to wait for cooler weather before starting classes.

But cooler classrooms aren’t the only change to come to campus in recent years.   School shootings began happening  with a much greater frequency about the time I retired from the education profession back in the nineties.   As a classroom teacher and principal I had to make sure that the students knew how to react in fire drills and tornado drills, but “active shooter” drills were something that we never even contemplated.  Now, sadly, they are commonplace in America’s schools – and they are necessary.

Now, more than ever, we recognize our vulnerability to angry men with guns.  Mothers are pushing their babies in bullet-proof prams, children are going to school dragging along bullet-proof backpacks, and teachers are showing their children when to hide during “bad man” drills.

It’s a new reality – and one that is very, very sad.

I discovered today's selection on Twitter.  It is entitled "Thoughts and Prayers,"  and the poet is Bob Pfeiffer.   Mr. Pfeiffer's heartfelt poem gives a very defined look at what it feels like to be the parent of a child who must leave the safety of home to function in a modern educational setting.

It’s not the classroom that I remember.

“Thoughts and Prayers”

by Bob Pfeiffer

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?  James 2:14

They treat it just like a game – 

Hiding, but no Seeking.

Our daughter’s kindergarten class,

crouching behind cabinets, in bathrooms,

the little spaces between classrooms,

beneath upper and lower-case letters,

chore boards, aspirations, class rules,

what empathy means to each of them.

They stay as quiet as they can

for as long as they can.

Teachers never call it what it is –

“A Lockdown Drill,” they say.

“A Bad Man Drill,” they say.

A week after the first one,

Layla was jumping on her trampoline,

when she stopped cold and looked

to her mom with a face I’d never seen.

What would the band man want?

And in the silence between her parents,

our daughter read the whole thing.

And after some little lie

aimed to keep her herself, for now,

she started jumping again, a little lower.

This morning, like ever morning,

yellow light blooms from the dark

in kitchens where the breakfast tables

Will always be missing one setting,

under bedrooms unslept in again.

And this morning, like every morning,

lights come up in the Halls of Congress,

Halls which are, again, as silent as our daughter,

eyes tight shut, palms cupping her ears,

the thunderclaps growing nearer, nearer,

holding every breath like a prayer.