{"id":6721,"date":"2013-09-01T06:25:45","date_gmt":"2013-09-01T10:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/?p=6721"},"modified":"2013-09-02T09:26:41","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T13:26:41","slug":"september-the-first-day-of-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/?p=6721","title":{"rendered":"September, The First Day Of School"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sept1TreeBook\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I
\nMy child and I hold hands on the way to school,
\nAnd when I leave him at the first-grade door
\nHe cries a little but is brave; he does
\nLet go. My selfish tears remind me how
\nI cried before that door a life ago.
\nI may have had a hard time letting go.<\/p>\n

Each fall the children must endure together
\nWhat every child also endures alone:
\nLearning the alphabet, the integers,
\nThree dozen bits and pieces of a stuff
\nSo arbitrary, so peremptory,
\nThat worlds invisible and visible<\/p>\n

Bow down before it, as in Joseph\u2019s dream
\nThe sheaves bowed down and then the stars bowed down
\nBefore the dreaming of a little boy.
\nThat dream got him such hatred of his brothers
\nAs cost the greater part of life to mend,
\nAnd yet great kindness came of it in the end.<\/p>\n

II<\/p>\n

A school is where they grind the grain of thought,
\nAnd grind the children who must mind the thought.
\nIt may be those two grindings are but one,
\nAs from the alphabet come Shakespeare\u2019s Plays,
\nAs from the integers comes Euler\u2019s Law,
\nAs from the whole, inseparably, the lives,<\/p>\n

The shrunken lives that have not been set free
\nBy law or by poetic phantasy.
\nBut may they be. My child has disappeared
\nBehind the schoolroom door. And should I live
\nTo see his coming forth, a life away,
\nI know my hope, but do not know its form<\/p>\n

Nor hope to know it. May the fathers he finds
\nAmong his teachers have a care of him
\nMore than his father could. How that will look
\nI do not know, I do not need to know.
\nEven our tears belong to ritual.
\nBut may great kindness come of it in the end.<\/p>\n

\u2014Howard Nemerov<\/i><\/p>\n

\"CakeDaisies\"<\/a>Elizabeth\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I My child and I hold hands on the way to school, And when I leave him at the first-grade door He cries a little but is brave; he does Let go. My selfish tears remind me how I cried before that door a life ago. I may have had a hard time letting go.Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[9,17,19,3],"class_list":["post-6721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sketchbook","tag-books","tag-penink","tag-poem","tag-watercolor"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6721"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6733,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6721\/revisions\/6733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}