Retrospective

Ejuther,
a child wrote
in a poem.
I will let you
puzzle over his word
awhile.
In another,
a child wrote this:
I love the
candleopera
that sits
on our piano.
In still another,
a teenager
wrote:
the clouds
low and gray,
gray
as the tip
of a pencil
and then
it starts to
rain.
In this way,
in the classroom,
words come
to be born again,
come to be
with children
and
their angles,
to have word
adventures,
to croak like
frogs
in a pond,
or cry like
babies,
or just be safe
enough
to dance and sing.
They do not come
to be spelled
or used
correctly.
Of course,
what words
really want
is to be
a family,
to be a
voice,
to call us
home,
wherever that
may be.
All I want,
a small child wrote,
his heart already
broken
a million times,
is for people
to love ejuther.