Photo: Stephen Paris on Pexels.com
It has long lain
In limbo,
All voices ebbed
Into dust.
As silent letters
On chalkboard,
Watch the desks
Left to rust.
At one time
Children chanted,
Poems rose
Learned by heart.
But they’d grown
And time hastened.
School-house days
Did not last.
Now it sits,
Heart quite emptied,
And still waits
For the past.
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Na'ama Yehuda 
What happy memories in those school-house days. I like the perspective of waiting for the past – a perpetual limbo situation.
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Thanks, Grace! Yes, happy memories and some longing since, and perhaps someplace a wish to rewind or revisit time — who knows, maybe that school-house will see a revival of sorts … and hear the reciting voices of children once again raised in song … 🙂
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Great photo to go with your great poem. A bit of nostalgia for sure!
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Hi Roth, yes to nostalgia and yes to some sorrow and yearning and, perhaps, hope beyond hope. Thanks for the great comment! Na’ama
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Somehow waiting for the past is such an impossible situation so it for sure is like limbo
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You got it!! Thanks Bjorn!
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loved this take on the prompt – the interaction between chalkboard and desk really makes the absence of any other life i.e. pupils stand out
“As silent letters
On chalkboard,
Watch the desks
Left to rust.
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Thanks, Laura!
I found that emptiness to be the most salient, as well, and all I could think of was: what will the letters on the chalkboard do now that the only ‘audience’ they have are empty desks? …
Thank you for reading and for the great comment!
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I like the thought of that school house waiting for new students.
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Me, too! It is also a little melancholy, given how long the school-house has waited … but it carries the possibility that perhaps there would one day soon be new children populating the class! 🙂
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Since I attended a one-room country school, this touched my heartstrings. When my mother was a child, children were required to memorize poems. She could still recite “Lil Orphant Annie” to me verbatim when I was a child. Needless to say, I loved your poem.
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Thank you, Beverly! What a lovely comment! I know some people who’d attended a one-room school (one of them learned in rural France, another in a rural community in the US) and tell stories that are both fascinating and touching. I’m glad that my little poem resonated! 🙂 Na’ama
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A lovely reminisce on place you bonded with.
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This particular photo is a stock photo, but I do believe many of us hold memories of elementary school (or kindergarten, or preschool) that have a bit of nostalgia in them and that perhaps carry a question about how that school/classroom/teacher is today. 🙂
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OK, thank you for the clarification, and I agree 🙂
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🙂
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You’ve painted a thought-provoking image of a little school, once beloved and full of activity, left to decay. We don’t know why, maybe because the village no longer has children, people have moved away, or a larger establishment has taken over and children are driven there by car or bus. I love how you’ve captured the atmosphere of an empty school in the lines:
‘All voices ebbed
Into dust.
As silent letters
On chalkboard’
and the idea of waiting for the past.
I listen to children read in a small infant school; the feeling of being a family and the individual attention given to the children is so valuable.
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Thank you, Kim, for this thoughtful and lovely comment! Some of us have corners in us that still wait for the past or try to revisit/rekindle/understand the turns of time. I’m glad if this personification rang true, through this poem. And … yes, children are magnificent! 🙂
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My apologies for replying so late – life and work intruded.
You’ve developed the mood quite effectively, and drawn out a particular emotional ambivalence about the concept of limbo.
Thanks for adding to the prompt
~ M
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Glad to add! 😉
And thanks for the comment!
Na’ama
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