Remember Kindergarten

(To celebrate Sydney and 2020 high school graduates everywhere)

Remember kindergarten?

how scary it was? The little tables

and tiny chairs? That friendly face welcoming

you, herding you together? Perhaps

there were a few tears shed, yours

and your new friends, strangers then,

all of you equally scared yet eager,

eager to be in school, eager to be grown up,

on your own, well, sort of, a big kid now,

for a few hours. Oh, but the litany

of rules and responsibilities grew long

in the lengthening days of this being grown up,

and then matriculating into the first grade

with its neat little rows of desks, side by side,

one in front of the other, or grouped,

a forced socialization, and the beginning

of twelve more years of teachers directing you

to where they are, adulthood, all grown up,

afraid themselves, but eager for you to fly.

And so you flew, as youth does,

too light not to, your sights set

beyond the playground, beyond the classroom

toward greatness, all things possible,

no limits in the cloudless sky, blue

and bright, beckoning you aloft, to stretch, untethered,

taking with you the talents you took from the toy

box of kindergarten - the athletic fields and dance,

the stage and art room, music and scholarly pursuits -

creative youth set free in kindergarten;

eager faces, scared and unsure and set free

in the lengthening days of kindergarten

and the twelve years more stretching forward.

And clutching yellow pencils in awkward little hands

you carved your names, black letters askew,

and left your mark, left yourselves imprinted

on a world eager and scared, but sure,

a world waiting for you, in need of you,

a world remembering your name.

Today is your graduation. You’ve long outgrown

the tiny chairs and little tables,

the neat little rows, side by side, or grouped;

your sights are now set well beyond the playground,

well beyond the classroom, but still … remember?

Remember kindergarten, where it all began,

how scary it was, a few tears perhaps, this growing up,

and the lengthy list of rules and responsibilities,

but how eager you were, discovering that there were

no limits in the cloudless sky, bright and blue,

a cloudless sky beckoning you still, even now

beckoning you to stretch yourselves, untethered,

taking with you those talents you took

from the toy box of kindergarten, all those friends

and teachers and the adventures of those 13 years;

so always remember kindergarten, the fears and

the eagerness, the setting free, no limits

in the cloudless sky stretching before you -

remember kindergarten and fly away to a world

waiting for you, remembering your name.