fourth grade social studies
TRANSCRIPT
University of Northern Iowa
Fourth Grade Social StudiesAuthor(s): Priscilla AtkinsSource: The North American Review, Vol. 290, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 2005), p. 27Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25127301 .
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N A R
PRISCILLA ATKINS
Fourth Grade Social Studies
Far more memorable
than the dull gray book
describing imports and exports of countries I'd never heard of
was the autumn
the first black kids were bussed to our school.
Only one girl
joined my class, and the teacher
put her next to me.
I remember
how envious I was
that Barbara could pull her short hair
into a bun and it would stay, or the way her head,
when she leaned
against the chalkboard
at the side of the room, left a small dark spot the shape of Italy or Venezuela, or how when she won the school-wide
spelling bee with "Constantinople," she stood at the front of the gym,
winked at me,
then nonchalantly took a bow.
And though we didn't compare and contrast every corner
of our continents,
the day we hiked up our dresses
and pulled back our underwear
to explore the mysteries of our nether regions,
we found twin puffs of hills
curving in common contours,
the same delicate puckering of summer roses.
E. M. SCHORB
Old Icarus
Grandchildren turning their faces from
drooling kisses to avoid
what you have
become:
teeth like graveyard stones, sunken cheeks
pockmarked (where once,
as a boy,
the feathers went), wens, wild hairs.
But you have had
your famous fifteen
minutes
toward the sun.
The wax your own daddy poured has melted
and the feathers,
plumes he placed so carefully flew, fell
and you fell
into the sea
but did not drown,
owning a future,
as you did,
long enough to hold your grandchildren close and have them turn away.
BEVERLY BURCH
Senseless The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all.
This puts one in accord with nature... ?John Cage
But human, we take meaning from everything:
the Cross hidden in a dogwood blossom, its berries Holy Blood. Olives hanging
on the tree, ripe tears of Mohammed.
Warriors hunt maidens in the stars
and we call our bodies the image of God.
Who hears pure sound?slight variations
in pitch of a bee zithering the air?
Have no purpose. Then be a rock,
rough and speckled, glittering in obscurity, a thing in the world, a tree with its hard beauty. Dense, free of the brain's fireworks.
Like rain across the grassland: clean
as a shining drop, hollow as a stalk of green.
January-February 2005 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 27
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