Childhood Memories six
It was Sunday night, I was
put to bed for school
the next day at around noon,
but by now it was already
eleven-thirty,
after a weekend a fun I
could relax enough to go to sleep.
So it was late, and I was in
bed, listening to my clock-radio,
like I always did. And suddenly
there was a news report
and John Lennon was shot.
A few minutes later
and the reports were
that he was dead.
And the next morning I walked
downstairs and my mother
was reading the paper.
And the news was there, it
wasn’t a dream, I knew
the news before my parents did.
After he died I remember
in school one of my teachers wrote in
calligraphy on a piece of paper
and put it on their bulletin board,
“You may say I’m a dreamer,
but I’m not the only one.
I hope someday you’ll join us
and the word will live as one.”*
and my seat, the chair with the little
basket under the seat
for my books, the chair
attached to the desk,
my seat was in the front to the side,
right in front of that bulletin
board.
And every day I would look up
and see it there, my first
brush with death.
* “Imagine,”, John Lennon
Copyright Janet Kuypers.
All rights reserved. No material
may be reprinted without express permission.
|
