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# School
- URL: https://dianaludwick.com/school/
- Published: 2026-02-28T20:20:28.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T20:11:18.000Z
- Description: “School,” an elegy for our girls and in recognition of the connection we have with children and women everywhere, written February 28, poem 059 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo, "Crayon box, with Ear" by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026.
- Author: Diana Ludwick
- Tags: 2026 Poetry Challenge, Poems, Community, Education, February, Girls, School, Tragedy, Violence, War, Women, #Migrated-1792872215677, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-10-24 20:03

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.