When I entered the room
there was no one there.
The desks were closed.
The floor swept.
New chalk was at the blackboard.
I trembled like a river.
My little life barren and plain.
Where was my class,
my teacher,
the books to be passed out?
Was I too soon?
Was it the wrong day?
Had they canceled my life?
I knew how important it was
to learn.
To play with others.
If there was no class
how could I color the world?
Write poems with kites in them?
Sing in concert with the wind?
How could I ever be new, complete,
if there was nothing to plant?
Was I intelligent enough
to be a living being?
Could I ever do what the rain does?
Surf on the waves with the wind?
Build castles of principalities
in the sand?
I went home.
Climbed the apple tree
in my backyard.
Challenged the height above me.
Wept the higher I climbed,
until I swayed in the wind
at the top.
As all things that happen,
really happen,
I asked God to make a dull boy
smart,
and so it was,
I joined the classmates of my life,
and never went back
to that empty room.