Photo: Na’ama Yehuda
She could still hear
The sound of children.
The thunk of balls
Against the chain link fence
Where the big kids
Played.
The smell of dust
From the yard
By the old concrete
Stage.
See the tiny kiosk
Near the gate,
And the ancient seller
Who was always
There.
Feel the coolness of
The main building
As you walked in from
The bottom of the outside
Stairs.
The smell of paint
And cardboard.
The metal-legged
Chairs.
And the hopeful
Cacophony
Of children on recorders
In the music room
Elsewhere.
Oh, she knew that
The yard was empty.
No hubbub actually
Filled the evening
Air.
Still the decades tumbled
As memory bloomed,
Transporting
Now to then
With an unexpected
Flare.
So much has
Stayed
The same,
Even as so much has
Changed
In her.
For the dVerse poetry challenge
Note: This photo was taken last year in my elementary school, which I had occasion to visit one early evening after not seeing the place for decades. It was a magical, if complicated, revisiting.
Na'ama Yehuda 
Wow, such evocative imagery. It must have been quite the experience and probably surreal. Great piece!
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Thank you, Lucy.
I’m glad this was communicated. Yes, it was an interesting visit, especially because I really expected everything to look so different than the way I’d remembered it and then … well … so much of it looked JUST as I’d remembered. Not identical, of course, but enough so it was ‘whoa, this really is how it was’ kind of experience. 🙂
Thanks again!
Na’ama
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Ah, there are ghostly echoes on the wind, when we revisit the places of our youth.
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Indeed, so true, Sherry. Complicated ghosts, often times, but no less effective in their echoes … 🙂
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Memories remain though times have changed. Beautifully written, Na’ama
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Thank you, Shweta. Yes, memories do remain, changed as they may sometimes themselves be in the process of growing up with us and growing on us or being seen through the lens of time. 🙂 Na’ama
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I love the use of sound (the thunk of balls against the chain link fence and the cacophony of children on recorders) and smell (dust, paint, cardboard) to create atmosphere and sense of place in this poem, Na’ama. It brought back memories of my own schooldays. I remember that feeling when I visited one of my old schools many years later, and the final lines ring true.
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I’m so glad, Kim, that it resonated.
Isn’t it amazing that the sensory input of schools is probably quite universal (at least in similarly developed countries), and that so many of us can relate? 🙂
That school is over 120 years old and while some of the buildings have obviously been adapted (we had no AC or heat in the classrooms when I was growing up), and the school expanded some, the older buildings have been kept and I loved seeing how the old layout was combined with the newer additions in a way that was absolutely recognizable to me, even after decades away. Was a complicated, but lovely revisiting.
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This is a wonderful poem… such vivid imagery paired with sweet sadness. I could hear the thunk of the balls… wonderfully crafted.
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Thank you, Miriam! I’m so glad it spoke to you and I’m gratified that it resonated. I think many of us share some aspects of “school sensory memory” and can ‘revisit’ in our own way, the memories of the way we were.
It was a sweetly sad afternoon. Childhood is a complicated thing, and schools are often intertwined with those times. However, I was mostly quite astonished that so much had remained recognizable, and so little of the foundations of the school (an over 120 year old school) and main buildings have been beautifully maintained, rather than replaced. It felt like a gift.
Na’ama
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To visit places from the past brings back memories where you sometimes are surprised that anything has changed
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Exactly!! Yes, and in that case, I was surprised (and gratified) that so much had remained the same! Even though a lot did change around the original buildings, the main ones (it is a 120 year old school and the buildings I studied in were old decades ago …), had been maintained in a way that the overall sense, at least in some areas of the campus, were eerily unchanged! 🙂
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Sounds like a place you’ve bonded with, Na’ama. I think our energies soak into such places as their energy soaks into us. Nice trip to that place for you that you shared with us 🙂
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It had been a complicated time for me in the years in that school, but the school itself wasn’t the issue. Or not really. So, yes, it was an interesting revisiting, and I was quite surprised that so much of it looked so much as I had remembered it. 🙂
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Well done. It is interesting that memories freeze in time even though we know things must change. Enjoyed it.
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Thank you, Bill! Yes, isn’t it fascinating how memories can freeze and thaw themselves out to flood us? 🙂 Thing have changed in that school, but what was surprising was how much did NOT change. How much they’d kept the same even though they could’ve just as well changed that, too. I was very glad to reconnect and see how much of it was as I’d recalled. Memory isn’t always so validated when it comes to early time and place. 🙂
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You are welcome. I like to do memoir-ish writing.
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Sometimes I do, too! Sometimes, it is stuff that probably drinks from the well of my experiences but isn’t quite a memoir. Fascinating stuff, minds. 🙂
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Indeed.
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🙂
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