SPRING IN AUTUMN’S AFTERNOON
Every year,
It’s the same.
Supplies.
Preparation.
Still hot outside.
Football starting.
Everyone grew a foot.
In the quiet of Before,
She knows how temporary this is.
She knows the volume and the sound that that will mean.
It’s a stone’s throw away.
Life.
New Life.
New learnings.
Old lessons.
Older everyone.
The late afternoon sun of Summer and the early Spring of the lives that she will guide.
Acorns will soon crunch.
There will be a different smell in the air.
The bluest of skies, and the newest hellos, after the bittersweet goodbyes, of a few moments ago.
She knows how this goes, but knows, she knows not, what will be known.
Waiting, waiting for the ones who wait anxiously to see her again, their bright eyes like a brilliant sunrise.
‘Ms. Cisneroz! Ms. Cisneroz!’
‘Know what happened to me?!’
‘Know what I got this summer?!
‘Guess what?!’
‘Guess where we went?!’
‘Guess what?!’
‘Guess!’
She will unavoidably herd them, a shepherdess of sorts.
She will move as quick as she can to be equal with her love, but it will always be more than she can do to dole out her affection, perfectly, evenly, and simultaneous.
They tug at her sleeves, her jacket, her heart.
They ask and tell and shout and whisper.
She looks and smiles and blinks and waves them toll-lessly through, but is paid, as they pass, with their trust, with their love.
She sees the beginnings with new teachers.
With new aides.
She sees what others must have seen, before she herself was in her own afternoon, here.
Everyone huddles in.
No one worn out with each other yet.
No new crushes yet.
No new friendships, but then, no new enemies, just yet.
This truly is the Before.
And while she does not yet know even her own After, she can see some of the Afters headed for in their eyes.
This one a programmer, this one an architect, this one a soldier, this one a nurse.
That one a contractor, that one a rancher, that one a music director.
There is one.
Or maybe three.
She sees the sure reflection in their eyes of : Teacher.
-Cisneroz
08.13.19
6:37 pm
At home
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