An Ode to Chalk

Chalk. Don't you love that stuff?

As I survey my childhood memory,

What really figures most prominently--

The foremost totem I can pluck from the muck of my mind--

Is not a picture book, nor a blanket, nor a big wheel.

No, my recollections of kindergarten are reigned over by

You wee, whey-like white wands,

Which wait in wide boxes without whining.

You pasty, pygmy Pillars of Creation, what

Proffered unto me a pass to play Elohim

And reshape the formless landscape of

The blackboard and the brick wall and the sidewalk

In mine own image.

Recall that the fingers of the Lord

Warned not of Babylon’s doom with plague or sword

But with the wonder of the writing on the wall--

So too were You a tool for my knowledge accumulation.

By what means did Mrs. Culberson

Inscribe her springy cursive in the ebony void of the board?

(“Behold this writing style you will surely use in the future, ye children, and despair!”)

With what wizardry did Mr. Rankin

Carve the eternal laws of PEMDAS onto the broad black stele

From which of our mathematical knowledge was derived?

‘Twas You, Crayola. Your

Scribblings were mouthwatering manna made for my mental matter.

For all You’ve done for me, I still feel shame--

Though perhaps I shouldn’t; we’re all to blame--

The way we would cast You off,

Abandon You for a virgin piece

Even after You’d sacrificed all for us.

Even after You’d allowed us to bear Your being on the altar of

The blackboard and the brick wall and the sidewalk

And let us to scrape it into nonexistence

For our own amusement and gain.

Tell me, how could I not tremble at the thought

Of befalling a fate such as Yours,

And being cursed to spend all eternity in Purgatory,

As but a stub of my former self--

Merely mostly dead,

Never to be

Fully incomplete?