The Heart of a Child

An old photograph
Black and white
A six year old stands
Just higher than the dahlias
Lunch box in hand
Hair washed and curled
The plaid flock style
Early sixties looks back through
That camera lens.

I don't remember my brothers
Waiting with me for the bus
I do remember my loud cry
Great alarm as we drove past my school
Not versed in bus stop ways
The laughter from the older students
The annoyance of the driver
All brushed off as I gained
The freedom of the ground
Running back along the road
To my first day of school.

Was it that day I relished
Making my first ever friend
Only she and I to negotiate
Our common interest and goals
No parental playmate decided for me
Or fate of neighbourhood arrangement
How delicious this new adventure
It's freshness such a delight.

A small two room country school
Grades one to three my classroom
An older English woman
Whose warmth and humour
Would accompany my first three years
A good British citizen I became
A culture taught not inherited
The triumph of reading
A thrill still remembered
As quietly the first year passed
Blending into the second and third
With grass and woods to play in
We smelt the changing of the seasons
It dictated our games
Held us in its wonder
Embraced us with its space.

I made good friends in
Those three happy years
Looked forward to becoming
A member of the other classroom
But that was not to be
The school was closed for a new one
Long in the building which sent
The students all to town in the autumn
I parted ways with my companions as
I alone made the trek
To the big wooden Catholic school
I did not return to the modern country school
Staying on my solitary road the next four years.

Fifteen students were now forty plus
How far away home seemed
I would gaze through the eastern windows
With an aching heart and
The distance was an exile
I had to endure
Learning to cope with
The small confines of pavement
Called a playground
The flights up the long narrow staircases
Behind a black robed figure
Whose long rosary clattered
Followed by my classmates
Who resisted me as a friend
For most of that year being
The loneliness of new.

I, a quiet student
Bent over my desk
Studied my new social world
Enjoyed the wild antics and tension
Caused by twin boys
Practicing for the future Balkan war
Taxing the poor teacher beyond
Her already difficult task
This American nun who
Told us stories of a different empire
Wept at the death of JFK
Pronounced him a saint
Still ascends the narrow staircase
Like a ghostly memory above me.

Grade five under a no nonsense
Canadian Polish nun of formidable girth
Passed quietly as I slowly made friends
By grade six I was
Accepted. sort of, adapted and
Somewhat casual to learning skills
Relying on a memory that came in handy
To keep academia at bay
Concerned with social interests instead
Until one day a new teacher
Sped into our classroom
A male invader, energetic
Discerning a taste for grade seven
Unhappily swallowed
I announced to my mother
I would not be attending his class
She announced I would
As thus I met the road whose
Direction has led me deeper
Into the heart that was mine as a child.