When my daughter was in Kindergarten
per the County's Back-to-School list
she had this blue plastic pencil box
and in it she kept her treasures:
crayons, markers and an eraser ear
that she scribbled on with pink
and kept with her all year.
We chuckled at her affection
for this little rubber body part
an honorary auntie had gifted
"So macabre," I had mused
"Hope she doesn't get in trouble."
My five-year-old loved
coloring and drawing and creating
her little pudgy fingers clasped
paper-wrapped Crayola stubs
her brow furrowed in concentration.
My baby girl delighted each morning
in readying for school:
she would ask to wear her curls
in pigtails or double plaits
and don her sturdy silver mary janes
and skip through the front door
to the bus stop down the street.
My little child loved her teachers
absorbed the ABCs and 1-2-3s
practiced her writing dexterity
and raised her hand often
to answer the latest question posed.
This little human hummed with joy
while she colored her pages
her eyes flashing with ideas
she got to come home each day
and wake up the next.
Today, more than one hundred
little girls with small fingers
and bright eyes and eager ears
started their school day
clutching bright wax crayons
and reciting their letters.
And without warning these
tiny souls went from studies
and singing and humming
to being dusty parts in the rubble.
All girls deserve to become women
to graduate from crayons to pens
to get educated and inspired
and to come home from school.
Every life is sacred
we are all connected
and those mothers in Minab
who now pace the grounds
clawing at cement piles
and smoldering I-beams
they are us we are them
their screams are ours
our throats are hoarse
their pain burns in our chests
we reel from our shared dismay.
We women worldwide
we hold these families
— and so many more —
in our hearts on our minds.
Crayons and classrooms
and children, our little girls
cannot become acceptable
collateral damage.
We must lean into love
— our greatest power —
to sketch out a future
and color in new lines of
a place where life continues
where our budding artists
and our future leaders
can go to school skipping
crayon boxes in tow
and come back home alive.
