By Helene Smith
there was no Memorial Service for my school.
no mourners in
black.
nor any Memorial Services for the other
49 schools.
all of the schools,
elementary.
elementary years–they say they are
our formative years.
i don’t know about that. but i know that my school was most of my
world at 6 years old.
and when most of your world just goes away when you’re 6–even if most of your friends–yeah, you got to see again–
i don’t know. but i couldn’t wrap my young mind around my school
going away.
after that, i went to a brand new school.
and i wondered if my old school was sad. if the classroom where Ms. Johnson read us books and showed us letters, was sad.
i wondered if my school didn’t understand. didn’t understand where everyone went.
i wondered if Lester was still there, with his mop and that big bucket when the bell rang.
i liked Lester. he always said hello to me. every single day.
like the forgotten slave burial sites that i read about so many years later…
our elementary schools were left and forgotten, eventually.
were said to be “attractive to developers.”
there were no Memorial Services for the 50 schools.
and there was no Eulogy for 50 schools.
–
Comments welcome.
Posted on May 29, 2013