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Glenda Beagan

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The Book Box

Each term
never on the first day
but always in that first week
the county book box would come.
It wasn’t much more than a crate really
made of pale wooden planks with a great hasp and a padlock.

While other children went out to spin in the sun
she stayed in the quiet classroom
that smelled of hot chalk
wearing her uniform of tickly grey serge

oblivious to everything
but the antics of coyote
and of timberwolf

the songs of chickadee
in the hickory

the calls of whippoorwill
on the plains

and best of all
the cold lone cries of loon on his own smooth dark waters.

And now she is an expert in her field
they bring her artefacts to ascertain their provenance,
dreamcatchers and blankets, baskets and arrowcases
exquisite Apache cradleboards.

She has no children of her own
but writes learned papers
on the folkways of the Arapaho.

It started
with a plain pale box containing multitudes.

Page(s) 64-65

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