In August, I watch
Tall children-students flower right in front of me.
And it is marvelous. A late-summer garden,
Juniors walk in and blossom into seniors as I hand them a syllabus.

Mysteriously, gracefully, they step right in
To the gap left in May
By a group that seemed irreplaceable, and certainly was so.
But this new class has its own feel,
Its own paths to tread of the infinite number possible
From a single starting point – like Beowulf.

So they pick different flowers on their own path,
Similar species picked by those May graduates, but a crimson sunflower,
Or a zinnia bent on proving that we underestimate zinnias, which we do.
Different flowers from the same story. And I am reminded
God’s good earth is inexhaustible.

And they learn to listen; and they do listen.
They talk of last year’s storytellers and their stories.
And I can’t be impatient with them
Because they are never impatient with me,
“It has to go through the app, Mrs. Sieg. See that blue square?”
We’ve come full circle; Mrs. Smith taught them blue squares
On their K5 carpet squares,
And now they teach me.
And they notice my new shoes and that I wore my hair up today.
And they ask questions bigger than one answer,
‘Why?’ ‘How?’ ‘Why?’
I walk up to the question in my new shoes and give it what I know
And hope it’s a beginning for them.

They are held together by their age, their moment,
This year’s variety,
But they welcome me to listen.
I love their words – the forming words they put on the trends of the minute.
I borrow their energy, their foreverness.

It is August. August is possibility.

Annual Pictures At The Green Door