Thursday, June 2, 2016

#153 Kevin Brophy 'Morning preparations'

#153 ‘Morning preparations’
You swept the verandah for them.
You put more prizes in the prize box.
You displayed a new alphabet
and swept the floor again.
You checked your word cards
and all the while the crow
sat outside talking to itself
about creation, seasons, beetles
and crusts it thought the children
had promised to leave behind each day.
You sharpened pencils
and replaced the reading books
in their boxes while the crow
laughed at something it had just said
to itself in the tree, the tree stirring
with its dark and solid presence.
You put out a word game for them.
You faced some book covers
outwards for them, hoping they would
lean in and take one and look through it
and want to read it while the crow
went on with a story of lost
baubles, mainly blue things,

and its memory of the taste of milk.

3 comments:

  1. In a few actions, and the powerful presences of crow and tree, you create so much more than is on the page.

    (It sounds like a small country schoolyard. Is the tree a peppercorn?)

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  2. It really evokes the rhythm of that time in the morning, before school starts, and all the preparation that goes into the day. The crow is wonderful.

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