A sandwich, A fruit roll-up, A juice box*

A sandwich, A fruit roll-up, A juice box
Parts of lunch I sent to school,
Marked the second-grader.

The lunchbox will leave wet remnants
of lunch here
and on the cafeteria floor,
any chance of eating it all
is lost in the recess shuffle.

But today, two lunch boxes are packed,
TWO kids will go to school
and leave Mommy behind, sniffling,
their destiny to leave her fulfilling.

There is but one more non-school-age child here.

They, created with love
and far from angels, still
hold her heart in their hands
clumsily, carelessly, dropping it
in the dirt and picking it up to blow it off.

Her eyes spilling tears
for squandered days.

The lunchboxes cry out today, you may leave notes in me,
But do not cry in front of them.

Do not live longing for the past
to wish away these days, today,
don't miss it.

The doorway of school opens,
embracing the children in their aluminum and glass arms.
Here, in the anticipation of this fine day
They will have the courage
to look upon familiar things and say goodbye, their
home, their sister, their mother, our past.

No less to the old woman in the shoe than the single child family.

No less to the second-grader now than the Kindergartner then and now.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your lunchbox
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.**

*******************
*with apologies to the extraordinary Maya Angelou (an abridged version as well)
**This stanza fit so well, mostly, that I left it as she wrote it, mostly.