Children going to school
by Gopi Kottoor
[ poetry - february 09 ]
The trees above them are dark with green.
It is summer. Birds have flown away in search of scrub.
Hot buds wait to break with puberty.
The children. Holding hands,
With the sunshine on their lips
They are going to school. Soon,
They'll learn their lessons of
earth and its motion,
Of God who hid Adam among the sad curved boughs,
Of Eve who got beneath with Satan's red apple.
They'll grow their hair long before they wear away,
Mirroring their teacher's words
That nakedness is sin.
They'll know why.
And, when the children return after school
Running naked for shelter in the night rain,
Treading upon dead petals under their feet,
The buried roots clawing their
castled blood
Have turned the trees, the leaves,
All red.
