NPM 2020 - The Beginning and the End

It's the last day of April, the last of National Poetry Month. I started on this journey thinking about all the places I'd like to go in a time when we are staying in and staying home. Pictures of those places served as inspiration for my poems. At the end of this month I'm thinking back to beginnings and to one of the places that is in my thoughts every day, and one I desperately miss.

Longdale Elementary School, Glen Allen, VA  

September, 2019

It started out so well
a dream really
back to school
every day a teacher's life
until it all came crashing down

I miss the early mornings
late afternoons
greeting kids at breakfast
lunch in the cafeteria
waving goodbye to their buses

I miss the gap-toothed smiles
the eye-rolling
the unicorns (everywhere on everything)
I miss the high fives
the fist bumps
but mostly the hugs

I miss what was
wonder what might have been
mourn for what will never be
and want it back
each minute we've missed
since the doors were
shuttered

I long for a do-over
a time-machine
to take me back to
that first day
before I fell in love
and had my heart broken

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2020. All rights reserved.

That's it for this year's NPM project. I can't thank you enough for stopping by.