Where do we go when the echos leave the halls;

When the chalk leaves the sidewalk.

When the leaves stop whistling in the wind?

Emptiness fills a void we don’t even know was there.

Full of apathy, lacking empathy, we don’t care.

We have cared too much and too long about the obsolete

That the obsolete has been reduced to whispered lies.

How do I care for the obsolete again?

How do I feel empathy and love and not pretend?

If it is not I, who will care for the leaves falling in the wind,

whistling sweet nothings to the air high and low.

If it is not I, who will put chalk on the sidewalks of children’s games.

If it is not I, then who will speak at length in the halls of the old high school.

If it is not I, then who will?

…

A poem by Dani A.

02/01/2022