Crying for the Day

New student, sixth grade, a school with boys (!) in English we learn “harbinger,” I think: robin.

The teacher molds writing lessons around Beatles songs, “I heard the news today, ‘oh, boy.’”

How different from my posh, all-girls school where I didn’t slouch under cardigans or crush on boys, imagining Harlequin scenarios, where I don’t remember having any dreams at all, where days felt like I was drowning in static humidity, in mental chaos of sticky spider webs, all long, winding roads.

How adult I felt at eleven, how child I instantly became as death proved always the harbinger of change.

Summer swelter here.

Water snake decapitates

a struggling darter.


written for dVerse.

22 thoughts on “Crying for the Day

  1. Oh my, this is food for thought! I love how you bring back old school days and relate them to being an adult. The learning curve about death begins in our tender years. Robins = Chang’e.

  2. Oh, the long dull days at school, waiting for life to start – and then the realisation that change can be painful too. What a great haiku to finish with – death lurking in the summer heat.

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